Not 20 minutes later, Marim burst through the docking bay doors of the duster, a small green-haired man slung over her shoulder. He pounded away at her muscled shoulder as she leapt back and forth, dodging weapon fire. Her bronze face was a picture of focus; neither relaxed nor strained. Like a dancer, she swung her body around the rim of the bay door with one hand, the other holding fast to the flailing bounty-head. Continuing the arc of her body, she threw her foot to the right, flipping a switch with her bionic big toe. The bay door slammed shut, whirring as the safety locks screwed into place.
Marim bounded down one of the ship’s corridors into a room filled with empty, open cells. She touched three of her fingers to a panel on the wall and a single stall lit up with white light. She threw her human cargo into the illuminated stall and a heavy red door closed the open side of the cell. The cell door changed from an urgent red to a satisfying pink, indicating the magnetic padding on the inner cell walls was engaged.
Marim paused for a moment to stand with her hands on her hips, nodding proudly at her work. After only a moment’s breath she was suddenly thrown into the pink door as the ship lurched to the side. As she heaved herself to her feet, Marim cursed the fact that the cells were not padded on the outside. The ship was fleeing, as it should be, but the lack of grace in the takeoff was concerning. Marim ran out of the holding bay, keeping an outstretched hand on the wall to steady herself. She made her way to the flight deck, where Ben and Lucia were frantically steering the ship to avoid the incoming fire.
"I’m guessing you got the Mick?" asked Ben, without looking away from the controls. He had pulled the bandana he wore around his neck up to keep his hair out of his face.
"He’s in the holding bay," said Marim, matter-of-factly. "Why haven’t we jumped yet?"
"Maybe you haven’t noticed, but these guys are shooting MEMPs at us, big ones," replied Ben. “Can’t risk them hitting us with one of them right when we launch, so we’ve got to lose them the old fashioned way."
A voice came over the ship’s com.
"Ben, we don’t have the firepower to take out all of these ships, you’ve got to drop them, to be sure." It was Dax, speaking from the manual weapons control deck at the ship’s stern.
"Soff it. Lucia, where is the nearest planet?"
"Planet? Uh, there’s one about 1,500 gigameters from here, but it’s not colonized."
"Don’t care, what’s the terrain like?"
"Mostly thallium and manganese rock, lots of mountains, some sulfur lakes."
"Perfect. Put in the coordinates."
Ben activated the ship’s cloak, and threw the ship towards the planet at sub-light speed. They soon entered a vaporous, fuchsia atmosphere.
"They’re still on to us, Ben," said Lucia, rubbing the back of her sweaty neck as she monitored the angry red dots on the radar.
"I said. Sit. Tight," he spoke through gritted teeth.
Ben quickly scanned the terrain map. He pushed the ship into a sharp dive, then a sudden curve to the right. He doubled back, then swerved to the right again. The only way the crew could tell they were careening through the fuchsia fog was the slight pull of inertia every time Ben changed directions too quickly for the dampeners to compensate. Eventually, the ship slid under a large outcropping of rock, and Ben cut all power, encasing the crew in darkness. He touched another active pad and even the pilot lights went dim. Lucia looked down at the metal device on the inside of her wrist and saw that it was off as well.
"You better not have just broken my Com-Palm," Lucia said to Ben, guessing that was just the sort of thing he would do without giving it a second thought.
"Cool your jets, little girl, it was just a tiny EMP. You can restart it as soon as these pig-diddlers give up the search." He stood, only his silhouette visible in the dim purple light that penetrated the thick clouds outside.
"You really think they won’t be able to find us?" asked Lucia.
"Highly unlikely." Ben paused. "About a 1% chance," he said as he rooted around inside of a locker.
No one pointed out that that was still pretty high, considering the consequences of being found by their pursuers.
Lucia tried to be constructive instead. "Can we turn on a light?" she asked. “Surely one light battery won’t give off enough of an electrical field to show up on their radar."
"You’re right, one light wouldn’t. That being said, I bet Dax is thinking the same thing."
As if summoned, a beam of light illuminated the corridor leading up to the flight deck, wielded by a relieved looking dog.
"That was some chief driving there, bud," Dax strutted into the room and clapped Ben on the shoulder. "Real chief." He flung a Com-Palm and a small bio-suit onto the floor. "Got the bounty’s tech. He surely won’t be revealing us."
Ben combed a hand through his brown-gray hair and sighed "Yeah, but now we have to wait for the izzers to leave. Could take hours.” Ben produced a flask from his jumpsuit and took a long, deep swig. “And I don’t want to hear any more of Marim’s weird stories."
Dax walked to the center of the deck and placed the light he was holding on the console. "Why don’t you tell us a story then, Ben? You’ve had just about the most interesting life of anyone I’ve ever known."
"Talk about myself, you say," Ben stroked his chin in a comical fashion, "that may be a good way to kill a couple of hours. What do you want to hear about?"
There was a moment of thoughtful silence, then Lucia asked, with a brave face,
"What is Pluora?"
Ben stopped in his chair mid-swivel. His gray eyes were fixed on something, except they were no longer seeing anything in this reality. He sat like this for 20 seconds, the longest Lucia had ever seen him stay still.
Finally, he dropped his chin to his chest. "You were snooping, in my workshop."
"Yes."
Ben let out a short, empty chuckle through his nose. Lucia felt a pang of guilt; she had clearly stumbled upon a bad memory.
“I’m sorry...I didn’t mean to, um, intrude,” she said.
"No, no,” Ben waved his hand, “ask about any period of my life, and odds are, I’m going to have to tell you a sad story. This is one of the saddest, however."
Lucia was frightened by Ben’s sudden depression, but nothing in the universe could have made her rescind her question. Marim and Dax were equally enticed, neither of them moving or saying a word.
"Well then sents, gather round," he stood, walking to the center console, where Dax had placed his light. It under-lit Ben’s face, casting long, ominous shadows from his facial features.
"Let me tell you about the death of Pluora, my homeworld."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pluora was one of four planets created by the Council of Light, a millennia after they discovered how to harness the power of stars. No longer would they have to search for the rare goldilocks rocks upon which they had molded their other worlds. With such immense energy, they were able to pull space dust into a concentrated point, birthing a molten planet. They cooled the atmosphere at an accelerated rate, until the weather conditions were appropriate for life. Super-plants were cultivated on the surface, turning volcanic rock to soil and removing any toxins from the air. Finally, they introduced animal life; birds and frogs and sagoats first, to make sure the planet was habitable, then humans.
It was a paradise. Giant trees scraped the blue-purple sky, vines with flowers the size of children covered the giant boulders that littered the landscape. Small streams ran everywhere, of crystal clear water never before touched by humans. There were mineral ponds, giant fields of vibrant yellow and green and red that bubbled and steamed. At night, the sky was filled with so many stars that it looked gray instead of black, and a nearby nebula blanketed everything in a rosy tinge.
The idea was to create a utopia, each planet a different experiment, testing the hypotheses of what made a perfect world. I was born on Pluora three years after it was terraformed. Children outnumbered adults thirty to one. We had no parents, only Teachers, but that didn’t bother us because we didn’t know any other way. We were told we were special, chosen even, destined to unlock the secret to happiness. The lack of adults ensured we weren’t overly influenced by the old ways, supposedly allowing us to discover a better path. Who knows if it would have worked out in the end, but I do know I was happy. I’m sure of it.
My first memory is of a Teacher taking me to an observatory. We walked through a path that was lined with giant white Sinia flowers in full bloom, up to the observatory made of jet black obsinite. It was warm outside, and I could feel the chill emanating off the cool stone walls as we stepped inside. The teacher adjusted the huge lens, and I remember wondering how all the sky could possibly fit into the tiny hole at the end of the telescope. Arval, the teacher, put my eye to the looking glass, and for the first time I peered into another galaxy. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I asked him if we could see the end of the universe.
"Not with our eyes," he said.
"Can we feel it?" I asked.
He laughed, "If you ever get there, please do tell me what it feels like."
Such is the confidence of a child, I thought he was giving me an assignment, an exciting challenge. A challenge to reach the edge of the universe, and explore the great beyond. I watched ships come and go from the planet, learned the names of hundreds of galaxies, traveled to them in my mind, but I didn’t know anyone who had been out there and returned to talk about it. It just didn’t seem real to me, the rest of the universe. That’s hard to imagine now.
I excelled in school, even compared to my classmates, who had also been handpicked from conception to colonize the planet. We had lessons every day, designed to hone our mental abilities, without teaching us what was right and wrong. We would memorize history, math, science, but were not taught to internalize them. Instead, we were taught to build structures in our mind: giant buildings where we could store the information, separate from the rest of our consciousness. The lessons would last for a few hours, but the majority of our time we spent together, just the children, playing. There were many places around our town that we weren’t allowed to go, but we understood that was for our safety. Pluora was as violent as it was beautiful, as the new planet bellowed and shifted in its crust like a toddler in a new jumpsuit. Accidents were common.
After our morning class we were instructed to meditate on the mystery of the universe. One day, myself and two other boys, Fett and Neerav, left the grassy knoll where the children lay with their eyes closed, and ventured out into the wilderness. We came upon a black field of fresh, volcanic rock, and ran up and down the mounds of dried lava. We all came to rest there, standing and panting on top of a volcanic mound. The rocks exhaled steam from a recent rain. Fett and I watched the waves crash against the edge of the land. Neerav stared down into a deep fissure in the earth in front of us.
Neerav spoke. “In my dreams, I’m inside of a giant hole that I can’t get out of. There is nothing, so much nothing, and I can feel it trying to turn me into nothing too.”
“Just run away from it!” Fett exclaimed and began running again. I chased him, yelling, “I’m the darkness! I’m the darkness and I’m going to eat you!”
Behind me, Neerav laughed and began running too. But the rock was slick, and as I turned back, I saw him slip and disappear into the crevasse.
The Teachers explained to me that death was a necessity, for without it there would be no meaning to life. True contentment cannot exist if there is not depression to compare it to, they said. Chaos and order cannot exist without the other, but perhaps even chaos can be controlled within our minds. Think of the rain, they said. It comes every five days, as we command it to, heavy and wet. But we rejoice in the fact that the rain gives the plants life, and we are even happier when the sun returns.
“But death,” I said, “how can we control death?”
“Perhaps that is something you can tell us,” they said.
This challenge I was not as happy to receive. The thought of it terrified me. I was very careful after the day Neerav died, never straying too far from the town for fear that death might confront me, and I had no idea how I might fight against it. Little did I know that only by leaving the confines of my home would I learn how to fight death, and wield its terrible power at the peril of countless lives.
But the death in this story is that of Pluora, and every sentient on it. It began on a beautiful day, towards the end of Demeter, the second summer. I awoke that morning and decided to skip lessons. It was not such a big deal to do so; no one was really required to do anything on Pluora except respect one another. My best friend Fett joined me, and we ran to a small beach nearby to race Slyzards; salamander-like creatures that lived in the rocks by the ocean. We would strap mechanical helicopter wings to them and race them like drones. We were ten years old, and obsessed with competition. I kept building faster and faster wings, with better power cells, tighter harnesses, but Fett would always win. Almost always.
Fett beat me nine out of ten times that day, each loss only fueling my obsession. I remember looking over at him in the middle of the tenth race, the sun reflecting off of his sweat-covered, freckled skin, his brows screwed tight together in concentration….and I had this desire to bite his face, to chomp down on his cheek as hard as I could. The startling, animal feeling caused me to lose control of my Slyzard drone. The propellers hit the black sand, spraying Fett’s drone with tiny particles. His wings couldn’t handle the friction, and his Slyzard fell to the earth. My drone was fine, having been built by my crafty hands, and I was able to complete the course for a victory.
I celebrated like I had won the Ultimate Prix, waving my wriggling Slyzard in his face.
“You’re a cheater!” Fett shouted, pushing me into the sand.
I swiped my legs to the side, catching his ankles and knocking him over. I pounced on him and he started flailing, hitting me wherever he could land a blow. But I would not relent, pushing his head further and further into the black volcanic sand.
“Ok, ok, quit!” he shouted, spitting flecks of sulphuric rocks from his mouth. I rolled off of him and we both laid side by side, panting for a minute or two.
Then we both started laughing; maybe because we realized how stupid we must have looked flailing around in the sand, maybe because we were ten and the only thing we really had to worry about was Slyzard races. If I had known it would be the last few blissful moments Fett and I would ever spend together, I...well if I’m being honest I still wouldn’t have said anything special to him. But he was my best friend and the only person I felt like I would see every day for the rest of my life. We were supposed to unlock the secrets of the universe together, but I watched him drown the next day when the planet collapsed.
Fett and I were about to begin another race when I saw something strange on the horizon. It was a huge plume of smoke, billowing forth into the sky. A volcanic eruption, the largest I had ever seen. A second later, Fett and I were thrown to the ground by an immense shockwave. I was knocked out for a couple of minutes, and when I awoke my ears were ringing so loudly I couldn’t think about anything else. Fett was on the ground to my left clutching his head. His mouth was open, but I could not hear him screaming.
I crawled over to him and tore his hands from his head, shouting that we had to leave, but no sound came from my mouth either. The water had already begun to recede from the shore, a clear sign that a tsunami was coming. I grabbed my friend’s arm, pulled him up, and ran into the trees, dragging him behind me. We were halfway to our town when the ground disappeared from beneath my feet, then leapt upwards, causing my legs to buckle. An earthquake. Of course, a part of me knew what was happening, but I never thought it would deteriorate as far as it did.
We ran the last half kilometer to the town bunker on shaky ground, covered in sand and sweat. The damage to the town wasn’t too severe, as the buildings were made to withstand the frequent earthquakes of the young planet. There was mass confusion in the bunker as everyone tried to communicate without sound, having been made deaf from the shockwave. One by one, sonic conduction headpieces were distributed. I affixed mine behind my ear, and tested it - "One two three, one two three" - I felt the conductor vibrate my skull, but still could not hear a word above the relentless ringing. The ringing was in my brain, and that was not so easily fixed.
I yelled to Fett as loud as I could, "Can you hear me?!”
He yelled back, "Not really!"
He gave me a small smile, which I returned. Everything would be alright, I thought. Teacher Byora approached me, brandishing a holoboard, like the ones we used in the classrooms. He spoke and the words appeared in the air, Are you hurt, Ben? I shook my head ’no’.
Teacher Byora dictated again, Good. Mount Azucar has erupted. The seismologists do not predict any further activity, but we must stay here for another 20 hours, at least until the shockwave has traveled around Pluora and passed us again. Please excuse me.
He disappeared into the crowd.
After the shockwave had made its second pass of the town, the bunker began to empty out as the teachers concluded that the threat had passed and saw fit to release their students home. By the 50th hour, only one teacher and ten students remained in the bunker, including myself. The ringing in my ears had begun to fade as the biobots in my body repaired my damaged eardrums. Our Teacher had directed us home, but only Fett had heeded the advice. I watched him leave from behind the thick windows of the bunker, too afraid of death to follow him.
From the bunker’s position on the small hill in the center of town, I could see two girls, who I recognized from class, playing with a fallen sign. I could also see Teacher Byora, who was making his way back to the bunker, holding a package of some kind. The emergency sea walls were raised around the entire perimeter of the town, towering above even the tallest buildings, protecting us from the tsunami floods.
You are probably thinking, why didn’t they start evacuating the planet after a tenth of the population was killed by an unforeseen disaster? It would certainly have made sense to do so, unless you understand the mindset of a Pluoran. We were pioneers, building a new future for sentientkind, on the first completely sentmade planet. We had endured earthquakes and tsunamis before. Apart from the Teachers, every single one of us had grown up with these events occurring on a semi-regular basis. Such events were a small price to pay for being special. We were chosen to live upon this experimental planet, and we did so proudly and of our own volition. Mortal anxiety was a feeling every Pluoran had to embrace constantly, and therefore never really felt at all. I was, of course, an exception to that.
Fett was almost out of my sight when the second earthquake struck. It was so violent that even the bunker shook in its gyroscopic base. I was thrown to the side, my face catching the sharp edge of an open panel as I fell. When I found my footing again, I immediately went to the window. I couldn’t see Fett, but a girl was pinned under a beam that had fallen from a balcony above her. I was about to leave the bunker and help her, when I heard a terrible crack, loud enough to overpower the ringing in my ears, followed by the low groan of metal being pulled apart by an immense pressure. Then I saw it. The sea wall had broken, and was beginning to fall. Water poured forth from the growing divide, engulfing the buildings below. I stared in horror as giant waves swept around the sides of the city, their crests dwarfing buildings far taller than the one I was in. I then saw Fett, sprinting down the street towards me. I turned to run for the door, but a large body stopped me. Teacher Byora.
"He will never make it in time. If you open that door you’ll only doom us all to the same fate." He stared me dead in the eyes.
I cried out, fighting against his arms, but gaining no ground. I turned back and pressed my face and hands against the window, my tears covering the glass. In a moment Fett was gone, swept beneath the wall of water that had almost made its way to the other side of the fortress walls that were built to keep it out. I fell to my knees, the ringing in my ears now so loud that I thought my head was going to explode. Teacher Byora grabbed my head and forced it up so that I could see him miming a ’shushing’ motion. I hadn’t even realized I was screaming. He grabbed my arm and dragged me down the stairs to the lower level of the bunker. The earth shook violently yet again. He threw me into a small pod with thick walls and motioned for me to stay, wait. I had no idea where I was or what was happening, my face and hands were soaking wet with tears...not tears, it was blood, I was bleeding from somewhere...a woman appeared, the one Teacher that had stayed in the bunker. She was visiting from another town so I didn’t know her name. She jumped into my pod, slammed the door shut, and pulled the ignition lever. We were thrust upward with such intense velocity that it pressed me down into the floor.
After a few moments, I was able to pull myself up and watch as we exited the atmosphere. I looked down at Pluora. Almost the entire planet was obscured by dark clouds filled with lightning. The woman began to type something into the control panel of the pod. She was talking, but I wasn’t listening. Suddenly, a bright red light arced out of the northern hemisphere of the planet, like a spout of lava breaking through rock and then a second later - black. We were jumping, away from Pluora, into an endless sea of black.