Space Dream Three (eBook)

CHAPTER ONE

Planet Aryu
The NiLT Prison

As the three Boowanskyvia ships settled through the ugly pink-buff colored sky, NiLT Curative Kewe sensed his stomach muscles quivering, his internal dread starting to grow. He ran his hand over his stomach to try to calm it. With his other hand, he ran his fingers through his greasy, light-brown hair. He recalled being captured in Bay, on the planet Swartz. He was sure they were going to be executed, but now seeing where he and the other NiLT prisoners were being exiled to, he pondered if that might not have been a better alternative.

At the sound of a commotion behind him, he turned to look. He saw a large man beating a smaller man. The guard yelled at the bigger man to stop, but it was too late. The little man was dead and had been thrown out of his seat and into the middle of the aisle. Kewe heard a man ask what that was all about. “The big man wanted to look out the window.”

Kewe turned around and squeezed his eyes shut. He hated being a NiLT. He hated what he’d turned into. He hated who he had become. He’d betrayed family and friends for the glory of the NiLTs, but there was no glory; only hunger and death.

Kewe watched as two other ships hovered over the flat landscape lowering crates and pods to the ground from the ship’s bottom bay doors. It became their turn as the ship with their load of 135 NiLT prisoners and the dead man in the aisle, touched down on the ground. The front nose-cone door opened and the front ramp unfolded down until it touched the ground. “Put on your coats and hats, it’s cold out there,” came the command, followed by a harsh, “Get off.”

He heard a Boowanskyvia guard yelling, “Take that dead one with you. We buried our dead, and we’re not going to bury yours.”

The Boowanskyvia people herded the NiLTs off the ship. Aryu was a cold, lifeless planet with high stone buttes and spires, and occasional waterholes in hidden gullies. There were many caves off to the right of where the ships landed.

The Boowanskyvia pilot QueKickO stood on top of the ramp after everyone had left the ship and said in a loud voice, “On this planet you are free. You can build homes and start a new life. We realize your food is scarce, so four times a year we will bring you additional food supplies. We have placed a geosynchronous orbiting satellite around this planet. You can request needed supplies, like medicine and other critical provisions. The computer systems we’ve left will contact the satellite and then transfer your messages to Swartz.”

Kewe pulled his long brown overcoat around his neck and wondered how the pilot could stand up there with only a short-sleeved shirt on. Perhaps the dense black fur on his arms kept him warm.

QueKickO continued, “Your way of life on Nat-Sat caused you to destroy not only your homes and way of life but even the planet.

“The Blue Ghost told me that he hoped you had learned from your mistake and could start over in a new and harmonious direction to build a new life for yourselves. If not, then he told me to say, ‘May God have mercy on your souls.’”

As the three ships took off, Curative Kewe watched them leave with trepidation. He had been allowed to keep his medical bag, and he slung it over his shoulder. His hands started to shake. He took the gloves given to him and pulled them on. It wasn’t the cold, but the growing fear he felt.

The daylight was an ugly pink-buff color. With the toe of his shoe, he scraped the sand under his foot. A red, rusty dust cloud swirled around his boot. He could see for miles in all directions, but the dirty pink sky made it seem like walking in a bad nightmare. The emptiness frightened him. This would be a difficult planet to survive on, he thought.

Kewe limped away from the people. He’d seen what was about to happen before. Soon an out of control mob scene would fight over all the supplies. He was a tall, rugged man, so Kewe seldom had problems with the other NiLTs, even if he had a bad hip that caused him to limp when he walked.

The rags he wore under his overcoat itched and scratched. Kewe tugged on his long, unkempt beard. He hated being so dirty. Was it only two weeks ago they flew into Bay? The Divine Furker told them all to go downtown and eat and drink as much as they wanted. The Blue Ghost was dead, he proclaimed with a dramatic flourish.

What a convoluted day, at first ebullient, then dispiriting. Driven to a restaurant by a robot woman, this restaurant served them all the food and drinks they wanted. It turned into a drunken/eating orgy. Two of the men wanted to attack the women waiting on them, but they soon discovered that these women were not only robots but were also stronger and adamant about stopping any unacceptable advances.

Kewe ate his fill, then sat and stared at all the food and drink available to them. The last time he’d eaten that much was on the Smoking Moon. He’d taken a window seat in the restaurant and daydreamed of being in the park across the street. He pictured himself walking on the grass, placing his hand on it and feeling its life. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen grass, perhaps never. Maybe he’d only seen pictures of it. However, he could not leave the restaurant. He had been given strict instructions to remain inside with the group.

Kewe choked up and hated the tears that formed in his eyes. His memory snapped him back to the time after graduating from medical school. For the glory of being a NiLT, he’d betrayed his mother and father in Prime and became a NiLT curative. His parents were probably taken from their home and killed. His lips tightened. For the glory, but there was to be no glory. Only pain and regrets. Soul suffocating sorrow and misery.

They received a signal at the restaurant to return to the ship. Many of them were too intoxicated to move, so he and the robot women carried those who couldn’t walk to the carriages. Once at the ship, they waited for the Divine Furker to come out of the bathroom, but before he did, they had all been rendered unconscious.

Later, when he woke, he discovered that instead of the Blue Ghost being dead, it was the Divine Furker that was dead, and they were all prisoners. That’s where he learned the NiLT forces had all been destroyed. The NiLT reign of authority and terror had ended. Only 136 NiLTs survived, and they were sentenced to Aryu for the rest of their lives.

Kewe watched the people mobbing the shipping crates, tearing open the boxes. Their cold white breath contrasted with the red blood spraying everywhere as they fought over the boxes. Kewe sat on a rock up on the side of the hill and shook his head at the frenzy. In a few moments he grew sick of seeing the people killing and hurting one another, and he limped to the many cave openings on the side of the mountain. Kewe wanted to find one that would offer some safety. At the end of the hillside, he found a large empty cave with a small entrance that he believed would work. Kewe bent and went inside. Up high above him, a crack to the outside would allow the smoke from a fire to vent. It was dark and forbidding, but it would do. He moved smaller rocks on the ground to clear an open space and laid out a spot for a fire.

An hour later Kewe returned to where all the large crates had been. Sprawled everywhere on the rusty colored sand were torn open boxes with food, blankets, clothing, cooking utensils, and other household goods. He counted 23 people dead. The cold would soon freeze the bodies so they wouldn’t decay. Kewe hated the stench of death. He’d seen and smelled too much death.

All the other people had raced toward the 130-living/sleeping pods dropped by the Boowanskyvia ships along a sheltered mountain cove a mile from his cave.

Kewe read the labels of two unopened boxes marked medical supplies. These he carried back to his cave. He spent the rest of the afternoon hauling box after box back to his cave. He ignored the dead bodies except for a few that blocked his path, and those he pulled out of his way.

By early evening, Kewe had packed his cave with food boxes, clothes, blankets, and furniture. By accident, Kewe discovered a black rock that would burn. The cave was warm from the fire.

He stepped outside the cave entrance and took a deep breath. The cold air caused his nostril hairs to tingle. The air smelt metallic and had a burnt taste to it. Kewe shook his head in disgust. It was a dim ominous pink color outside, but he could still see. He decided it was time to find the boys. Kewe guessed they were probably 12 and 14 years old when he first found them. He felt sorry for them. They were among the NiLTs asleep on the planes that crash landed on Swartz. They went to sleep in a world they didn’t know and woke up in one they didn’t understand. Kewe had hoped they would come to him after they landed, but he’d not seen them. He limped to where the ship had unloaded the prisoners, checking the dead bodies to see if any of them were the boys.

Two smaller men jumped out of the shadow of a large boulder with stones in their hands. “Give us your bag,” one man demanded, “or we will beat you to death.” Their nervous white breath puffed in and out rapidly.

Kewe reached in his medical bag and pulled out an ominous scalpel and waved it in front of them. “How eager are you to die?” His grim, hard face and stature he...