Echoes of the Past

Chapter Six - Part Two

Chapter Six - The Carnan Sand Dunes - Part Two

A whining pitch carried on the wind. Evan picked out the sound and looked up to see a black spot against the rose coloured sky. The other two had yet to hear the engine sounds.

The dark shape grew as it descended into the atmosphere. Evan determined a blocky shape, with two bulges stretching out on either side. Landing lights glittered on the underside, casting a light over the clouds it passed through.

"That's a big ship," James noted, finally noticing it.

Evan estimated the ship to be larger than his family castle, and twice as long. It had been a long while since he had seen a ship of its size.

"A Great Ship," he muttered absently. "I thought them all destroyed or lost from the Break."

"It's a big one, alright," Sam said. "But there are no Great Ships in service anymore. What remains are just wrecks and relics. A true Great Ship would've been atleast four times that size."

The whining engines were accompanied by a deep rumbling as it passed high over them. This one may indeed be smaller than the fabled ships of old, Evan determined.

"Looks like it's heading to the Hath-Ba spaceport, past Riondon," Sam added.

"I've seen a Great War Ship," James said. When they both looked at him, he turned away, somewhat embarrassed. "Well, the remains of one, of course. Not a real working one. There's one buried in the ground, down towards the West Sands. You can see it from Mount Volton."

"Can you, now?" Sam asked, raising his brows. "Quite a sight it'll be, I'm sure. Hard to find a relic from the Great Wars."

Evan fell into thought as they walked. In his mind's eye, he saw starships the size of cities surrounding the planet, careening airships trailing black smoke through a battle-filled sky. Explosions sent clouds of fire and dirt into the air. Thousands of soldiers battled on bloodied fields, surrounded by thousands of dead bodies. Detonations of sorcery ripping through the air and striking the devastated ground. An entire planet crumbling under the immense powers.

He had seen these images a long time ago, in the ancient dial stone of his old tutor, Albian Feloria. A glimpse into the Great Wars that desolated the galaxy over ten thousand years earlier. Evan had been fascinated with the visuals in the cloudy orb that Albian possessed, so different from all the other dial stones he had seen before.

His father had never approved of Evan seeing what the wars had been like, but his old tutor thought that Evan could handle it, and had a right to see what gluttony for power and domination had achieved. On one occasion with the dial stone, Evan had seen an expanded view of a star system, littered with colossal space craft and countless tiny ships attacking each other. Fire ripped through the crumbling planets, torn apart by the incredible firepower of the Great Ships. The magnitude of the loss of life in just that one glimpse was lost on Evan at the time, being more in awe of the spectacle of it all.

"What do you know of the Breaking, Sam?" James asked. "I know of it, of course. My personal memories may be gone but I still have a fair bit of knowledge about a few things. But I get the feeling that you'd know a bit more about it all."

Sam shrugged, wincing from the gesture. "I know what's in the history books. Along with the endless, widespread battles, hundreds of Great Wars saw to the Breaking of the galaxy. Whole star systems, gone. Countless lives lost. In the Aftermath, the leading galactic bodies, such as the Uri-Thuren and the Sumasai, put together the S.P.A and announced the Armament Restriction Law.

"The law severely restricted and monitored the use of armaments and munitions across the galaxy. All firearms of any kind would be manufactured in an inactive state, unable to be fired without a corresponding Trigger Switch. So a person can only fire a specific weapon, if they have the Switch for it, and unable to fire any other."