The cabin door opens with a rusty creak, as a white haired, sturdy man enters the chamber, waving a red banner in front of him. When he sees Cikagn awake, he bows down deeply. Cikagn motions for him to step outside as he changes back into his Talon suit, taking 10 minutes before the man enters again, this time bringing with him an entire group of curious people. From young to old, their hands are calloused, and their skins harsh. The elderly have wrinkles across their faces, some with sullen skin on their kind and weather beaten cheeks. The children are small and knobbly, smiling with unguarded naivete, curiosity and admirance.
As weird as the environment Cikagn is currently in, he recognizes the expressions and behaviours of the people to be similar to those grassland tribes. The warm, yet rough personality. The lines etched into their bodies by nature. Their aura of straightforwardness, and simple-minded mindsets about loyalty, honour and respect. Cikagn begins to recall his conversation with the tribals, realising that they speak english, he feels a relief. The white haired man approaches him, bowing down, he says "O' great spirit, please feel free to request anything you may need, we shall do our best to offer you the items you may desire."
Cikagn nods in acknowledgement, mentally listing his questions in order. "Would you mind telling me how you came to be?" he asks.
The lines on the white bearded, white haired, and sturdy man wrinkled with a smile, as he sits down on the floor, its creases worn smooth by time, and its surface swept clean with the ocean breeze, as he begins the story of the sea.
"Our tribe, once a nameless group of weaklings huddled inside a cave, was blessed by the heavens, who sent a dark fairy, just like you, to guide us." he started, "the fairy, wearing all black armour, killed our enemies with a wave of his hands, before escorting us to a sturdy and grey haven underground, flowing with water. The holy fairy blessed us with the knowledge from the heavens, in which we were enlightened with five massive armoured sea creatures that were moored in the underground haven. The great spirit, with all his benevolence, told us how we will survive in this world. He instructed us to leave the land, where we had been massacred, hunted, chased for so long, and set into the endless sea." the old man takes a breath, as Cikagn senses the trust and gratitude from his recount, just as if he is passing an epic to another generation, "The angel set us free from our bounds within the soil, escorting us onto the armoured sea creatures and teaching us how to command them. And thus, over the past tens of thousands of years, we have been able to thrive. Our people abide by the merciful sea whose waves have caressed our tribe, filling our bellies and giving us supplies for our immortal armoured sea mounts that are also our guardians. We, with our enlightenment from the heavens, were able to overcome the disease outbreaks, disputes, and the powerful pirates that had tried to overcome us." the old man bows to Cikagn, "we are aware, as time passed, that what we encountered might not have been an angel, nor a devil, but a great and merciful spirit. And despite our calls of gratitude we offer to the skies, we have not received any ways that we might be able to compensate or give in return to the omnipotence that is our god. Except the last word that the spirit said to us, that we are not to speak of him, nor erect any statues of him, only to pass his gracefulness within our hearts if we wish to. The great spirit also said that we are to provide any assistance that we may be of to anything, or anyone wearing similar attires to him, with blades that absorbs light and heavenly items that are coated in grey and black. And thus we have, O' spirit, we are willing to offer our loyalty to the heavens, and we wish for a target." the old man looks up, with the eyes of a warrior looking at his lord.
There is a moment of silence as Cikagn calmly takes in the situation.
He reviews his plans, he has to contact Falcon command and tell of his survival and ask for directions.
Amelia has definitely drowned by now, as Cikagn analyses her chances of survival. They crashed somewhere around the Arctic circle, with all their onboard equipment broken beyond swift repair. Meaning no way of contact with the central command. Even if her communication equipments were undamaged, the Overwatch satellites should have been overloaded with a frenzy of exchange between the bases around the entire world, in which priority channels would have been made for the Talons that were confirmed to be alive, with all those presumed dead to not be included in the priority data stream. A message of 3 letters SOS would take some 20 minutes before Nestlings listening to the secondary radio receive notices it, provided that Amelia has the capacity to keep sending the message for the entire time. A single exchange for her radio frequency encryption, location, and state of injuries will take hours. And then the Falcon command might decide to abandon the lone Talon. 60% of the fighting forces in Falcon city has been dispatched, with who knows how many that made it back. Rescue personnel might not even be available if the battle is still ongoing.
And all this is in the context that Amelia is lucky enough to have crashed onto an iceberg, fully conscious, with her communication equipment somehow intact from a fall of 40,000 kms.
Now is not the time to grieve for the loss of his entire family.
A lone Talon, upon losing his entire unit, has 2 paths.
The first, is the Talon is crippled beyond medical assistance, he/she is granted a warrior status and may retire to Owl city within the Fittoa forest.
The second, should the Talon still be capable of fighting, he will be reassigned into another unit. If no units are in a shortage of personnel, he will become a Nestling until a unit can be assembled including him.
And here it is, he has 2 options, one is to retire and be humiliated by the elders in Owl city, or replace his family with people he does not know, or worse, get assigned to a group where he spends the next 40 years feeling secluded and out of place, like being an guest to a family.
Then, there is the other option.
To escape and defect.
YOU ARE READING
The Nauta
Fantasy"The Sea, the all reaching and all deciding", an old saying of the elders living within the ancient establishments. The Falcon Eye, an ancient organization within a world hundreds of thousands years into the future, where humanity began to rebuild...
