Dragon Star Battleship

Chapter 4

The shuttle broke through the clouds and the world below came into focus. There was a vast greenish blue ocean and small, lush looking continents grouped around the planet's equator. Images began to appear on the shuttle's screens that were magnifications of the world below and the crew collectively inhaled one sharp, long breath.

Noel had expected to find, at most, a primitive people. Some hunter-gatherers. Some tiny villages. Their scanners had indicated as much and so when every other image that appeared was of a megacity Noel's mind did a bit of backflip. For a moment it was all just colours and images divorced from anything but the sheer wonder of it all and then it was the horrifying realization that death and destruction and genocide were about to happen on an incomprensible scale.

The cities were twisty, organic things. Metallic structures as high as mountains in all the colours of the rainbow. Instead of cars they had giant, neon pink and green spiders that clambered through the streets and along the sides of the buildings. Riding in little carriages on top of the spiders were a motley assortment of people that looked vaguely like dolphins, sharks and octopuses, but with human torsos and appendages.

"Oh my god, I don't know what to say, really," Arya's hand hovered over her mouth. Her eyes were opened as wide as they could go. "I didn't realize. I must have made a mistake. This is much more advanced than even I thought."

"Right?" Jim was smiling ear to ear. He looked a bit like a puppy who had just stumbled across something that was miraculously and inexplicably better than a bone. His excitement level could hardly be contained. "They're super intelligent and no one has ever discovered them before. We're the first. Just look at them. Don't you think they look like sea creatures crossed with humans?" He had turned around in his seat so he could look at the screen. He zoomed in on an image of one of the inhabitants. Its skin was blue-gray and though the snout was shorter the face was distinctly dolphin-like. It even had a fin on its back which was visible because, it, like everyone else they could see ,did not appear to be wearing clothes.

"Like aren't they just adorable?" Jim persisted. "No? Not even in an awkward kind of sea creature way?"

"Jim," Lorin said slowly, her upper lip curling back into a sneer, "They're all going to die."

Jim's smile evaporated. "Uhh..yeah...I guess you're right about that."

Noel noticed that his crew was starting to look at him expectantly but he had never been faced with a catastrophe of this size before and he was finding it hard to talk. His throat felt like it was closing. His mind raced, and his heartbeat got so loud it was all he could hear.

But then, all of a sudden, everything clarified. His airways reopened and he was calm again. He realized he knew precisely what was about to happen next and as awful as it was, there was comfort in knowing because it meant he could act.

"Jim."

"Yeah? Are you going to tell me it's not the time or place for my antics? Is that it?"

"No," Noel cleared his throat. "Can you pull up an image of the forge? Use the ship's sensors if you have to."

Just then their comms system crackled. It was Cara. "Sir," She said, "I don't mean to alarm you but the forge has activated their weapons and they've directed them at us." She paused. "I hope you don't mind but I've put our shields up."

"Great thinking," Noel said. He had been right then. Now that they had hard proof that the planet was full of intelligent life they were going to eliminate not just the planet but Noel and his crew as well. Surprisingly, this did not make him angry. There was a cold logic to it that made sense and, as it clicked into place, so did so many other things as well.

"You need to get out of there, Cara. Now. We'll find you." His tone was urgent but calm. "And start broadcasting everything that is happening everywhere. All social media. Live feeds."

He waited to hear her response but none came. For a sickening second he thought that was it, they were all dead, but when he looked at the display of the Forge he could see they were still there. Taking fire but turning tail and preparing to jump. Their comms were jammed. They had anticipated his next move and they didn't want the universe to know what was happening there.

"Jim, get us down to the surface and start recording everything," Noel commanded.

"No offense captain but shouldn't we be getting the fuck out of here as well?" Jim replied.

"First we're getting proof," Noel said. "Hard, irrefutable proof. The kind that can't be digitally altered."

"Oh, I get it," Lorin looked at him thoughtfully, a half smile forming, "We're going to kidnap some of them. Cool." She flexed her metal fist. "This is going to be fun."

"But sir," Arya said, her hand dangling in the air. "Kidnapping is wrong, isn't it?"

"Do you think they would rather be dead?" Lorin asked bluntly.

"I mean, I'm not sure we can make that decision for them," Arya said with so much earnestness it made Noel want to scream.

"For fuck's sake, let's just get down there," Noel said.

"Aye, aye. With cloaking engaged?" Jim asked. He added, "I don't care if they see us I just want to avoid being shot at."

"Sure," Noel sat back. For a moment he ignored Arya who was straining against her seat belt in an effort to insert herself into his peripheral vision but then realized he didn't have the mental resolve to ignore her for the next fifteen minutes. "What?" He growled.

"The other thing to consider, if I may, because I do respect the final decision is yours, of course," She warbled, "Is the possibility of contagion. They might infect us or we might infect them. We could spread a plague throughout the galaxy."

"She has a point," Lorin admitted. "But we could just sedate them and seal them in Chem bags. They'll be fine."

"With all do respect, but will they? I mean we don't know anything about their physiology."

"And so what? Then they die?" Jim countered. "Because if we leave them they're also going to die but that's one hundred percent the case and then we leave without any solid evidence of what happened here."

"I suppose that's true," Arya's shoulders sagged dramatically but she sunk back in her chair.

They landed just outside of one of the major cities by a lake that was a brilliant, surreal shade of tropical turquoise and was surrounded by watermelon sized flowers with large, iridescent yellow petals. There were about fifty people by the lake, all sitting cross legged in a neat pattern of overlapping rings.

Even though Noel and his crew were invisible the noise from their thrusters was audible and the yellow flowers first swayed then compressed beneath them. The locals observed this in silence. No one got up or ran away or even looked visibly surprised.

"That's weird," Jim remarked. "They look like they've been waiting for us."

"Don't be stupid," Lorin said as she slipped on her helmet. Jim made a face but didn't respond. When everyone else was properly suited up in air tight combat gear Noel gave the signal. The bay doors opened.