Chapter 15
Groggily, Nova opened her eyes. Almost fresh air greeted her nostrils, and the sight of blowing leaves was before her eyes. She remembered running through the streets with her children in tow, trying to escape the armored soldiers. She remembered failing at that task, and sat bolt upright.
"Mark? Miyuki? Where are you?" she called. She stood up and looked around. All around her were unconscious people. They were all civilians from the look of them.
She would not panic. She would not allow herself to panic.
In a rush she tried to make a systematic search of the people around her. Fortunately, she didn't have to look very far before she found her own children, Mark and Miyuki.
"Where are we?" Miyuki asked.
"I don't know, sweetie." Nova looked further out at the horizon, but didn't see anything that she recognized, but she did see that more and more people were beginning to come to.
There was one thing she could use as a landmark, and that was a stone structure. It looked like an alter of some sort, it was obviously manufactured, even if it looked like it was made from rock.
A voice thundered from all round them. It was harsh, but not unfriendly. "Welcome home to your promised land. You are welcome to make whatever lives for yourselves that you wish. I shall be happy to provide for you. Whatever you desire shall be yours if you ask for it aloud at the alter. Know that I am your Lord, and shall tolerate no other gods."
Nova and the other startled humans were then left in silence.
"You are too easy on them, Lord Malathin," Cyani said. He was often critical, and did not believe in giving even an inch. If it were up to him, Malathin doubted there would be any prisoners left alive at all.
"Nonsense, they are where we can enact our experiments on them, and they cannot escape. What more do you want?"
Cyani sniffed, "You should force them to rely on the alter to get what they need."
"No, I know these humans. Eventually some would give in and worship us in order to survive, but a majority of them would sooner die."
"Then let them."
"We can be merciful. I have provided them with trees to build with, soil fertile enough for farming, and seeds for growing. They have edible roots and berries to keep them alive until their crops come in. A hard life for a noble people, yet you would prefer that I break them."
"Yes, Lord. I would. We are the superior beings, they should acknowledge it."
Malathin excitedly pointed to the monitor showing the human habitat, "Look, already they are building a communal shelter for themselves. I didn't expect that to happen so soon, someone must have taken charge.
"Yes, Cyani, we are the superior race, and that is why I can show mercy. Ironic, though isn't it? We can do all of this, and yet we are still a dieing people, resorting to kidnapping other races in hopes that by studying them, we can save ourselves."
It was obvious that mere words would not win Cyani over to his way of thinking. Just as well, it was time for the conference. With a wave of Malathin's hand, the screens showing the Human habitat were replaced with images of High Lord Sodoman and the other Lords.
"Malathin, what is your report?" The high lord demanded.
"The humans are adjusting to their habitat, we will begin testing soon. Gamilon testing is also continuing. The message requesting the pacification by the Gamilons has been sent." His report complete, Malathin took a step back, and waited to see if he would be called on again.
"Now for Dieldrin's report," Sodoman ordered menacingly.
Dieldrin knew he was in trouble, his skin was even paler than usual, and he was visibly sweating. "Our forces engaged the Earth Defense Fleet, and destroyed 60 of their fleet before they unexpectedly received reinforcements."
"What kind of reinforcements?" Sodoman interrupted.
"A single Earth Battleship, High Lord."
"No doubt it was the same Star Force that defeated the Gamilon empire. Continue."
"The new battleship took us by surprise, and opened a corridor through which the rest of the Earth fleet withdrew and regrouped." Dieldrin swallowed, and took a deep breath. "After repeated use of some form of wave weapon, my fleet was defeated. I suffered 90 losses."
"There is no excuse for such a loss Dieldrin." Sodoman said. "You will be executed."
Instantly, the monitor showing Dieldrin winked out.
"Moving on," Sodoman continued, "Antimony, your report."
Antimony stepped forward on his screen. "Yes, High Lord. We have taken three more of Gamilon's outer colony worlds. I have noticed that the last world we took had next to no defense fleet, while I would have expected them to begin reinforcing their colony worlds instead. It is possible we have overestimated the Gamilon forces.
"We have also established contact with dissidents on the Gamilon home world, and will help them stage a revolution, which should further help to destabilize the Gamilon Empire, making its complete eradication even easier."
"Excellent. I will now listen to recommendations for the replacement of Dieldrin."
The stars were recognizable constellations, Nova thought, so they must be somewhere on Earth. But that didn't really make sense either, since the fruit, although good, was nothing she had seen before. There was no sign of guard posts, so where ever they were must be pretty remote. She wasn't sure how or if the enemy was watching them, but she felt sure that they were. She had not been able to locate the intercom they had used to talk to them earlier either.
Once again, her thoughts were interrupted by the grumblings of a man named Justin. "I hate that thing," he said again, gesturing to the alter with its wolf head motif.
"Then don't use it," another man named Alan said back to him from across the fire they were sitting around.
They had built a large communal house that was almost large enough for everyone. It had been an interesting experience. Alan Toban came up with the design based on an exhibit from his museum. Tomorrow they would build another two buildings to house the men and women separately. There had been some debate to build anything at all. Some people viewed building the shelters as giving up and settling into their new prison, but the arguments about sheltering the children had won most of them over.
They were an interesting cross section people, museum curators, electricians, plumbers, secretaries, tour guides, and teachers. People like Justin, Alan, and she had even found Homer's wife Wendy. People who would normally never meet but were suddenly forced together, to work together. So far someone had all the skills they had needed to call upon in order to get things done. But still, someone needed to try and find out where they were.
Nova quietly entered the communal house and nudged Wendy awake. "I'm going for a walk," she whispered to her. "Will you watch Mark and Miyuki until I get back?"
Still partly asleep, Wendy nodded. "Yes, I can do that. Where are you going?"
"I'm going to see what is out there." Nova said. Standing she walked back out into the night.
She took a few moments to look up and fix the north star, then set off walking to the north.
She passed plenty of trees, bushes, vines and other greenery. Everywhere she saw thick coats of grass that covered dark fertile soil. The further she walked, the denser the vegetation became, until she wound up climbing over a few bushes, but then on the other side, was a sparse desert. Rock hard soil, with no sign of life anywhere except for the forest she had just left. It felt a lot later than it was, she had been walking for a few hours by the time she left the forest.
Continuing into the desert, she continued to find nothing, alive or dead. Come to think of it, she had not seen any animals. No birds, squirrels, or anything else, only vegetation. Up ahead she saw something in the distance, and changed her course slightly to make for it. It looked like a black speck in the desert, too far away to make out any details about it.
Getting closer, it did get larger, but still was identifiable only as a black speck. It continued to grow, and oddly enough the ground it was resting on seemed to come up to her. It had to be some sort of illusion, but it certainly gave her a head ache while looking at it.
Stars, she could see stars in the speck, which was now a large black spot. Perfectly round that almost looked like it was standing on the ground, but there was no hint of a shadow. No, there was a shadow, her shadow which was visible on the horizon.
It was definitely an illusion then. She reached out and touched her shadow on the horizon. It was a wall then, a very carefully painted wall, which made the spot she saw a porthole. They were in some kind of ship.
Nova couldn't help wondering just what the others would think when she told them what she had discovered.