Solbidyum Wars Saga Book 1: Battle of the New Orleans (2 page)

Other than the feeling of a slight pressure change that made my ears pop, I didn’t notice any significant changes, though the red flashing light stopped and the display on the small screen beside it responded with a new set of characters.  Thus emboldened (since nothing had exploded, nor had any poisonous gas flooded the room), I pressed the flashing amber button.

Immediately, lights throughout the room flickered into action and everything began to shake.  At first I thought the place was falling apart and caving in; but as my bearings shifted, I understood that the room was in motion, slowly rotating and righting itself to position the floor beneath me.  I recognized that this might be my only chance for escape; so, as soon the floor reached an orientation where I could get a stable footing, I moved quickly toward the
doorway, until I was stopped in my tracks by the commanding sound of a male voice that came out of nowhere in a language I didn’t understand.  Bewildered, I looked every direction within the shifting, rumbling room, searching for the source of this voice, which then repeated with the same tone and inflection whatever it had said moments earlier.

Suddenly, as the room seemed to lurch, I was propelled at incredible speed toward the wall near the exit
, and then all went black.

The next thing I remembered was feeling like my head was full of buzzing bees.  Images of daily life seemed to whir randomly about me,
until the realization of pain grounded me again in the moment.  When I finally opened my eyes, I didn’t know straight away where I was or what had happened; but slowly my surroundings came into focus and I recalled my topple into the control room and everything that unfolded after pressing that
damned
little flashing amber button.  At first I thought the floor had again tilted into wall position, until I realized that it was
my
position that had changed – I was lying on the floor.

Once more, I raised myself up with a groan; this time the floor was the floor and the walls were walls; everything seemed to be oriented correctly, except possibly me, as I was in a great deal of pain and quite unstable on my feet.   While I tried to sort out the events that that occurred before I blacked out, my eye caught view of the wall behind the console.  What had been a large dark panel that ran the full width
of the room now appeared to be a viewing monitor lit up by what I
really hoped
were not passing stars; but the denial didn’t last long…it became clear that they most certainly were.  Periodically, colored lines appeared on the screen that connected various stars in angular paths and geometric patterns, arguably forming navigational triangulations and calculations.  After a short time, I had no choice but to accept that I was no longer on Earth, but in an inconceivably advanced spacecraft going someplace I could not fathom at speeds which I had been taught were impossible.  From time to time, the male voice would speak, announcing what I could only assume were prompts or perhaps navigational details; but there was no one around to hear them other than me, at least to my knowledge.

I scanned the expanse of the control room and spotted a second door at the opposite
end of the wall where I had entered.  Supporting myself against the wall, I limped my way toward it and touched the green pad; as expected, the door glided open, revealing another long corridor similar to the ones I had seen when “boarding” what I now understood to be some sort of craft.

I passed through a short distance of the corridor
and came to and intersected with the end of a narrower passageway, this seemed to extend across the width of the ship’s interior and connect with what I deduced would be the corridor where I had begun this adventure.  Half way across this passageway I noted a door on one side and a connecting corridor on the other that extended to the right.

The periodic announcements continued to be broadcast throughout the ship as I explored further, finding what I guessed to be a galley with a table and seating for about six people; two cabin spaces, obviously meant for one person each; and third cabin designed to provide four people with sleeping spaces and
seating around a table, all of which were attached to the floor.  Like those mounted in the control room, these were cushioned, high-back swivel chairs, though some appeared to be locked in position by a means I didn’t yet understand.  I sat in one, wondering what it was made of, as there were no visible seams in the covering.  The material felt like soft leather and the cushions seemed to conform mechanically to my body’s contours just enough to be comfortable, while still providing firm support.  I noted that the armrests of each chair were equipped with the familiar panels of colored lights and buttons; to be sure, I kept my hands clear of them, not wanting to repeat the consequences of my earlier curiosity where buttons were concerned.  Past the quarters I found something I couldn’t easily identify, but I had a hunch it might be a secured airlock, as there was a window installed in it that allowed me to see into the chamber.  Inside were suits and helmets…”Space suits,” I imagined.

Opposite the airlock was a small room that contained the biggest surprise so far since boarding the craft.

As I entered this room, I was greeted by a long, white surface that bore resemblance to an examination table – and a mummified body that was strapped to it.

The shock of this find wasn’t terribly great and didn’t really last very long, it made sense since I had not met anyone
aboard the ship and the length of time it apparently had been in the swamp that whoever had been on the ship originally had died..

As far as
injuries were concerned, this individual didn’t appear to have spent his last days feeling very well.  There was a line of tubing extending from a compartment on the wall that connected to the mummy like an IV and other instruments attached to mechanical arms that projected out over the corpse.  I was surprised that there was no smell of death in the room.  While attending college I had worked part time at a museum, where my duties included cleaning the display cases that held mummified bodies.  Though the smell of a mummified body is not as bad as that of a rotting body, there is a definite smell of death that lingers even after centuries.  These remains seemed to have none of that smell and, for a moment, I questioned whether it was a real body at all.  Though the corpse was desiccated, it was not rotted away or decayed in any way and the skin maintained a flesh-like color.  On one of his hands there appeared to be a discolored wound, but other than that the body appeared to be unharmed.  Clearly, this room was an infirmary and the patient on the table had died before completion of a procedure of some kind.  As I continued my self-guided tour, I wondered what had happened to him – and for that matter, what had happened to the rest of the crew.

Between the infirmary and the airlock there was another door leading to what I now guessed was the back of the ship.  When I activated the door, it opened into the largest space I had seen so far.  I was looking into an enormous cargo hold, but the only thing I saw stored in it was a container big enough to cram in perhaps eight people.  The encasement looked like a ceramic-type material and the lid, made of the same material, was fitted with an electronic seal and locking mechanism.  The whole assembly was loaded onto the front of a machine which, I gathered from its appearance, was used for moving cargo about the space.  The rest of the hold was empty and featureless, with the exception of a large door or hatch on the far wall, obviously meant for loading and unloading cargo, and a smaller door on the opposite wall leading into what I could only guess from its configuration was the engine room.  A second doorway at the forward of the engine room (moving back in the direction of the front of the ship) opened into a storage area that contained a small variety of supplies.  Again, at the front of that room was another doorway that brought me back into the corridor near the control room where I had first entered the ship.

Having explored what I now was relatively sure was the extent of the craft; I returned to the control room and plopped down in the center chair.  It was obvious that, except for the mummified body in the infirmary, I was the only one on board.  What had happened to the rest of the crew?  Had they died?  Abandoned ship?  Where did the ship come from?  How long had it been lodged the mud in the swamp…and why was it there to begin with?  My mind was plagued with such questions, as I pondered whether I was ever going to get back home or how would I accomplish that little challenge.  The craft obviously originated from some place other than Earth; and if the display on the screen was correct, the ship was traveling in excess of light speed which, according to the best scientific understanding on Earth was impossible.  But then, I thought to myself, many things in the past that were believed impossible turned out to be quite real, once science caught up enough to prove them so.

As I sat facing the giant display of passing starlight, probing my sore ribs and head, I found myself simultaneously surrendering to the unknowns that faced me and to the exhaustion that had overtaken the excitement of the day.  “Day,” I thought, “I wonder if that word is ever going to mean the same thing to me again.”

I began to drift into sleep every few minutes, only to be roused by the intervals of broadcasts that I surmised were providing data and status reports.  The male voice was also repeating a short phrase that started when I seated myself in this central chair, which I found myself thinking of as the captain’s chair.  This new phrase seemed to be expressed as a question.  In my exhausted state the repetitive interruptions became agitating; and I eventually blurted out, “Will you please
shut up
!”

This outburst was met by a momentary
silence; followed by, “Mar goomie deluzkie mebulea?”

I had no idea what the hell that meant; and I responded with further exasperation, “Yeah right!  Just my luck… I’m gonna die listening to this crap.”

The voice again responded with something a bit longer that again sounded like a question.  I replied, “I can’t understand a damned thing you’re saying and I’ll bet you can’t understand me either… so why don’t you just
shut up
!”

A few more moments of silence followed before a portion of the star-filled screen before me opened up another display, within which a human figure appeared and began speaking!  I leapt to my feet with a jolt of excitement at the welcome sight, because I first thought it was a real person on the other end of some kind of communication system.  When I tried to initiate a dialogue, however, it became obvious that I was seeing a recorded video message.

I sank back into the chair with disappointment, just more gibberish in some sort of instructional video that directed the proper positioning and activation of what looked like a headband-like apparatus.  The video was of short duration, showing an ordinary-looking man who walked to an enclosure in a wall to retrieve the headband, place it on his head in a specific arrangement, and then press a sequence of buttons mounted on the side of the band.  The instructor repeated a series of words for about a minute then took the headgear off and placed it back in the enclosure.  He then seemed to turn directly toward me, as if speaking to me specifically, and said something, which, again, I didn’t understand.

After a short pause, the recording began to replay from the beginning.

Largely ignoring the recording, I absent-mindedly pressed one of the armchair buttons, which triggered the chair to tilt back gently into a more relaxed position.  I allowed myself recline, discovering that there were also small screens on the ceiling above each chair that I had not seen before.  The few that weren’t blank displayed more characters that I couldn’t decipher.  I pressed the button on the armrest again and the chair returned to its original position.

I kept wondering what all of these displays meant, where the ship was going and what was guiding it.  Based on the movement I saw on the screen and the sequential appearance of lines connecting the stars, there was a definite course in mind… but who or what was navigating was unknown, at least to me.  When I pressed that amber flashing button, I must have somehow activated an automatic pilot that was responsible for the ship’s launch and my painful introduction to the back wall.  No doubt, the voice had first tried warn me to be securely seated. 

If my pressing that button had launched the ship into space, would pressing it again take me back?  It was a long shot and I knew it, but I decided to try it anyway.  Making sure this time that I was I was seated in the captain’s chair, I extended my arm to the button I had pressed before, only now it was glowing a constant blue.  I pressed…and I waited.

Nothing happened.  The stars kept whizzing by at the same rate as before and the ship seemed to be going in the same direction.  Meanwhile, the headgear instructional video in the smaller window had repeating for about the thirtieth time.

I was getting hungry and thought perhaps there was chance that something still edible might be stored in the galley and, for that matter, something to drink.  Looking at my watch I realized that it had been seven and a half hours since I had entered the ship, I must have been unconscious for some time after smashing into the wall. 

“I suppose it’s better to get up and look for food and water than just sit here and wait to die.”  I returned to what I believed to be the galley and began to poke around.  While most of the fixtures were unusual, I thought that I might figure out what they were, if I exercised some imagination.  A cubic opening was positioned in the wall near a column of buttons, each of which was accompanied by what looked like a description in the alien writing that I guessed might be food selections.  Next to that was a similar but smaller opening with fewer buttons and descriptions, which I hoped might be beverage selections.  I was at least going to give it a try.