Sunlord (14 page)

His face beaded with sweat and brows knitted with
concentration Shaun at last managed to free one of the four screws.
It fell through the grating of the corridor's floor with a
tinkle.

Shaun moved onto the next screw, his thumb nail
battered and torn as he applied pressure to it once again. A small
part of his mind heard the pattering of many soft insect feet
growing louder as the Lectar bolted into a run. Once it turned the
corner it would be upon him.

The second and third screws fell from the grill.
Shaun knew he didn't have time to work the final fastening loose.
He curled into a ball, gripped the sides of the tube, and thrust
his feet forward with all the might he could muster. A cry of
effort broke his lips as his feet met with the surface of the
grill, buckling it slightly outwards, pivoting on the remaining
screw.

Shaun drew back for another kick just as the Lectar
rounded the corner and was in sight of its prey. It flashed at an
incredible speed down the small narrow horizontal tube, jaws wide
as it rapidly approached Shaun's back.

Shaun's boots met with the grill again and this time
the metal gave. With a clatter and snap of metal Shaun's way was
open.

The Lectar's jaws closed on thin air as its prey
ducked out of the tube. Momentarily bewildered, the Lectar skidded
to a stop.

Shaun slammed the grill back into place, jamming it
in as best as he was able. He stood vulnerable in the wide metal
corridor that, fortunately, was deserted for the moment. Shaun ran
down the corridor towards the docking bays, and over his shoulder
saw the bulk of the Lectar slam into the grill.

Seconds later it had burst through and was once again
on Shaun's tail.

Memories blurred and the next few minutes seemed to
be smudged into a smudge of images. He ran down endless corridors
and evaded Sunlord guards as they tried to intercept him. The next
thing he knew was that he was in the docking bays and hurriedly
fitting himself into a suit and breathing mask. He fitted the thick
red material vacuum helicasuit and tightened the metal straps as
fast as he was able. The suit was designed for the Sunlord form and
thus did not fit Shaun's humanoid figure but he wasn't out to win
any fashion competitions. The airlock hissed closed behind him and
suddenly the vacuum surrounded him. He stumbled across the steel
deck towards the small craft laying in wait for him upon the rails,
breathing a sigh of relief to see his command to ready the craft
was successful. Shaun bounded in the half gravity, taking huge
leaps that sprang him over three metres at a time. He further saw
that his attempts in the computer room had been a complete success
when he spotted the craft's door was open, ready to receive
him.

He dove into the door, rolled, then crashed against
the bulkhead, bruising his ribs and driving the air from his lungs.
Laser fire lanced through the open door as the Sunlord guards
caught up with him, their handguns blazing.

Avatar had also cottoned onto his route of escape.
Slowly but surely the huge outer doors of the airlock began to
close to seal off Shaun's exit.

Shaun was into the couch and punched the activate
button. The small pod craft rolled forward ponderously on its
tracks and towards the closing main airlock doors, but Shaun was
not waiting for correct alignment as he punched the main thrusters.
He arced from the deck, deftly wrenching upon the control stick and
squeezed through the gates more by luck than skill. With a bare
millimetre to spare the craft slipped through the airlock was
ejected into space.

Hull cannons mounted on the exterior of the Urisa
must have hit the escaping pod, Shaun thought in retrospect, for
his craft had blossomed into flame upon planetfall. Searing heat
dominated his mind as he recalled this terrible period. Still,
somehow he had avoided his captors and safely made a crash landing
in dense forest in the northern hemisphere of the planet
L/Cn-41a.

He had crawled away from the smoking ruins of the pod
incase Avatar should find it. In fact, he knew Avatar would find it
and within hours, maybe minutes, the area would be crawling with
troopers. He was badly injured and his pace slow but this knowledge
drove him on with steely endurance.

Then something had found him. Its silhouette stood
above him, the full moon directly behind it. A black metal rod was
poised to strike...

Shaun remembered nothing more.

He struggled back into reality as he emerged from the
emptiness of his slumber. The memories had come in a split second,
yet in that strange landscape of dream they had seemed to last into
infinity.

He coughed weakly and lifted his leaden eyelids,
amazed he was still alive.

"Where am I?" he gasped, trying to bring the smudge
of colour he saw into something recognisable.

He was surprised when he was answered.

"You must rest. You are badly hurt."

Shaun was confused. A feeling of vulnerability
invaded his mind, like a hare pinned down outside the safety of its
burrow he didn't know where to turn. He reached up and felt the
Sunlord translator earphone was still in place, explaining why he
had understood the words of the speaker.

A cool, damp rag was placed upon his forehead.
Through half blind eyes Shaun saw a humanoid shadow lean over.

"You are lucky to be alive."

Shaun's mind raced, analysing the words he heard in
an attempt to find out where he was, and in whose company. The
accent was unmistakable; it belonged to one of the native
inhabitants of the planet. Even the translator could not hide the
trill, birdlike whistling dialect. But the native beings lived only
in the cities, thought Shaun, and he was in deep forest. Some other
intelligent life?

"Who are you?" he croaked more demandingly. He could
not rest until he knew.

"We call ourselves Eloprin," returned Myshia. "I see
you star people know little of us, just as we know little of
you."

"I am different to them." Shaun opened his eyes with
great effort and the shadows resolved themselves into small,
delicate forms clothed in animal furs and hides, jet black hair
tangled and unruly. Shaun was anxious to establish a
friendship.

"I too am hunted by your enemy."

"That I can see," came a response as another native
stepped into his field of vision. Capac stood tall and
imperialistic over the prone form of the human. "You are very
strange, very different," he continued, musing over the truth of
his last words.

Capac held his rifle by his side just in case the
alien should move quickly or try to attack. Ashian had insisted
that they help the thing, and reluctantly Myshia had treated its
wounds with natural resins. For hours the creature was unconscious,
Myshia's usually nimble hand hesitant as it tried to patch up an
anatomy totally different to that which she was used to.

They had eventually decided trying to arresting the
blood flow and to soothe its welting burns that ran

along its back.

And now it had awoken Capac felt a new surge of fear
that almost made him swing his rifle in what would have been a
fatal blow.

Ashian stepped in smoothly and spoke.

"You are a machine, like them, aren't you?" he asked,
using a stick to gesture at the translator box at Shaun's throat.
His curiosity was aroused and he prodded like a child that stood
just out of reach of the

tusks of an elephant.

"I...use the machines, yes. But I do not plug my soul
into them like my enemy." Shaun stopped as a wave of coughing
overcame him. When all had subsided he continued, each word agony
as he breathed in with bruised ribs. "I use the machines, I am not
used by them."

"I have so much to ask of you, but I see your pain.
You must rest."

Shaun nodded absently. Already his head was spinning
and he felt dizzy with exhaustion. He lay back down upon the reed
bed, reeling with pain borne dreams and apportions that half
imposed his mind.

He somehow knew that he was safe, for the moment at
least, and the floodgate of sleep was released. He no longer fought
off the enveloping blackness.

Ashian's brows gathered as he drew back and
counselled with his fellows. They all glanced nervously at the pink
fleshed creature that lay before them, its glinting clothing making
it seem ethereal in the afternoon sun.

"I say we kill it," muttered Capac. His mind was
balanced upon a knife edge; the thing looked too much like their
sworn enemy. "How do we trust it? For all we know it could be
leading the Sunlords right to us."

"No, Capac, look at it." Myshia's voice was low,
sensible. "I don't know how much blood these things can afford to
lose, but I'd say he has come dangerously close. If we hadn't come
across him would have been dead with the setting of the sun."

Capac paced uneasily from foot to foot. "It is a risk
I don't want to take."

"It's worth it." Ashian's mind was firm. "Our world
is on the edge of extinction, and we are the only chance. For all
we know, my cities and your tribes may be under attack. I have been
over this many

times in sleepless nights. Our only two weapon's are
those of initiative and cunning. To overcome the enemy we must
first learn of it. This creature says he is an enemy of the
Sunlords, and if so will be invaluable to our cause. Please Capac,
consider the alternatives."

Myshia nodded consent, and gestured for Capac to do
the same. She saw the creature before them as a gift from the gods,
a tool be used, and she wasn't about to let it go.

Capac pondered for a second, and opened his mouth to
speak. He had barely uttered a syllable before the star creature
stirred again.

"Why do you keep me here?" he asked in a whisper. His
eyes were still closed but instincts cried out against sleep in
such alien company.

"We need your help," began Ashian. "We are going to
drive away the Sunlords that threaten our people."

"Sunlords?" asked Shaun. The translator had not
recognised the word and so had left it in Eloprin tongue.

"The starmen, the things that drive the shiny carts,
spitting fire and death."

The computer chip in the translator picked this up,
and substituted the Eloprin word for the one Shaun was accustomed
to.

"You want to drive them off?" the latter asked. A
faint smile lit his lips, wry and devoid of mirth. He opened his
right eye a crack. "Do you realise the strength of your foe?"

"We have the strength to match it." Capac's answer
was defiant and a gleam shone in his eye.

Shaun sunk back into his makeshift bed wearily.
"Fools. For generations my race has fought them. They are beasts
with might enough to take on the universe."

Ashian stepped in between Capac and the creature. "We
do not look for blood. All life is sacred and I must protect it.
Even the life of the Sunlords are a part of the ever present Abas,
and to take it is sin.

I stand for both the Currach and the Eloprin when I
say that we do not wish to destroy our enemy, we only want to send
them away and bring peace back to our cities. That is my
purpose."

Capac practically sneered at the Currach. "I will not
rest until every Sunlord lies dead at my feet!"

Shaun held up his hand from his horizontal position
on the ground.

"Stop, please. You must understand that you natives
do not stand a chance. Just accept it."

Capac's face shone scarlet. "The Sunlords will
die!"

"Wait," called Ashian. "We will not sit back and
watch farmhands become rebels, rebels that are massacred every day.
We will drive the starship off. With your help."

Shaun staggered at this last remark. Even in his
weakened state he struggled into a sitting position.

"Now wait a minute, nobody said anything about help.
If you guys want to run under a steamroller, go ahead. But you're
not taking me with you." He relaxed and slumped back onto one
elbow. "This planet is doomed. I'm getting off it as soon as
possible and I'm going to head back to the Federation."

"You want to run," said Capac witheringly. "Your race
has no pride."

"I belong to a great race," countered Shaun. "We are
the biggest threat to the Sunlords and we dominate more than five
hundred worlds. Eventually the human race will one day overthrow
the Sunlords."

"You must help us." Sweat ran off Ashian's brow, the
jungle hot and humid. "We saved your life, and you must save ours.
Anyway, now you are stuck on this 'doomed' planet and are in it as
much as we are."

Shaun considered this. "I was planning to steal a
Sunlord pod and cross to planet L/ME-11X. Don't get me wrong, I'm
very grateful to you, but please, I am of more assistance to the
Federation by going back."

"Perhaps you'd like us to leave you here to die?"

Shaun paused, suddenly finding it bizarre that he
should be bargaining over his life. He knew there lay no
alternative. "I will help you to get aboard the Sunlord mothership,
but from there our paths will split. It is a suicide mission I
would not like to take. But you have my word that I will get you
there."

Ashian glanced at Capac, as did Myshia. Their council
was silent as Capac's brows gathered in thought.

He nodded slightly. "We will get you back to health
on the condition we get aboard." Capac's mind did not even venture
on how to travel so high in the sky. His race had never even heard
of an aeroplane, let alone spacecraft. To him space may just have
well have been another dimension, an alien world so disjointed from
his own. It was a realm unknown to him before the Sunlords had
invaded, and since then the tribal elders had deeply discussed the
seemingly mystic powers of the silver men. Instead he chose to
clear his mind of questions and simply accept the notion. "I can
handle the battle once we are there."