Chasing Legends

Part 1

Izara gazed at the stars through the window of her quarters. It was hard to notice, but she knew they were slowly moving across her field of view, their position drifting as the ship charged through space at impossible speeds. She also caught her own ghastly reflection staring at her. She was tired, exhausted even. Her scales, usually a bright iridescent green looked now dull and dirty. The military didn't care much for comfort on their ships, not even inside the captain's quarters.

Her thoughts wandered, like they always did, to the war. Would the defense lines still be standing? Or would the core worlds be scorched graveyards by now, ravaged by the Vograh? Would her family be dead? Was the crew of this ship the only survivors of the entire Confederacy?

The worse part was being isolated. They had stopped all transmissions as soon as they entered Vograh controlled space. Stealth was as important as speed for this mission.

But she knew their chances were slim. That she was here, a xeno-archaeologist leading a wild goose chase across uncharted space, was a telling sign. It was a mission born out of desperation.

They hadn't listened to her. Not at first, when the menace was still vague and distant. Not when the first Vograh scouts approached the outer worlds. Not even when their vanguard pushed through the Confederacy's defenses. It was only when the outer worlds had fallen, when the colonies had been destroyed, and hundreds of millions had already died, that she was allowed to speak to the High Council.

She spoke of the past. Of how each one of the five races that formed the Confederacy had a different culture, a different set of myths coming from their pre-industrial past. It wasn't surprising, given that they had evolved around different stars, separated by light years of empty space.

What was surprising, though, was that all of them had one legend in common.

It always started thousands of years ago, with the demons descending from the sky. Four-winged demons, in countless numbers, their large bodies covered in thick plates of bone and claws, breathing poison into the air. Remarkably similar to the Vograh they now faced.

The demons destroyed their cities, set their fields ablaze, butchered adults and children alike. The survivors hid in caves and forests, cowering in fear. Their weapons, their pikes and swords and armors, all useless against the invaders. They knew they were facing their end, their extinction.

But then, when all hope was lost, their prayers were answered. New visitors arrived from the sky. Some of the legends said they were warriors sent by the Gods, other said they were the Gods themselves. They arrived in their flying fortresses, large as cities, shadowing the ground below. They set the sky in flames, in a righteous fire so bright that anyone who looked at it was immediately blinded. Many of the demons burned in the air, their fried corpses falling to the ground amidst a red rain.

Then, the flying fortresses spilled their warriors. Hundreds, thousands of them, wearing large suits of impossibly light metal, a metal that resisted the demon's claws and bites. They could jump amazing distances, and they carried weapons made of light that could pierce even through the thickest wall. They clashed against the demons like a tidal wave against a shore. Unrelenting, they carved their way through the monsters' armies, burning and slashing, crunching corpses under their metal feet until none of the vicious creatures remained.

Then, they simply left. Got back into their flying fortresses, and disappeared into the sky, never to be seen again. But there was a word, a name for the warriors. A name that was the same across all versions of the legend: Human.

"Commissary Izara, your presence is requested at the bridge". The voice coming from the speakers got her out of her trance. This is it, she though. They were about to reach their destination.

She left the captain's quarters and advanced through narrow, dark corridors, dodging crates and exposed wires. The insides of the Restrained Wind looked more like a construction site than a starship, all non essential material having been stripped away to reduce its mass and marginally increase its speed.

She steeled herself before entering the bridge. She knew the rest of the crew didn't like her being around. She couldn't blame them. The military valued sacrifice and honor, and being so far away from the front lines at the time the Confederacy needed them the most was, in the eyes of many of them, the same as becoming a traitor.

And, to add insult to injury, they were under the command of a civilian. Her. A scholar, who had been given the rank of Commissary in a hurry, with no training whatsoever. Who now slept at the captain's quarters.

She opened the door and entered the bridge. The large windows covered every wall, with bright icons and indecipherable diagrams of various colors overlaid on top of the background stars. Scattered around the room, four operators stared at the screens and entered commands into their computers, controlling every system of theRestrained Wind.

She positioned herself next to Captain Kisner, who glared at her for a second before returning to his own tasks. She ignored him. She focused on the small dot in the center of the front window.

One month ago, she had convinced the High Council that she knew where the Human world was. After years of research, and cross referencing the tales found in dozens of archaeological sites, she and her team had been able to narrow it down to the third world orbiting a yellow star in the C24 cluster. An unremarkable and unexplored area.

All of those years of research, of misleading clues, of figuring out words whose meaning was lost in time... She would soon know the truth. She felt a twinge of guilt when she realized she was caring more about her curiosity than the real reason she had been given this ship to play with. But she couldn't avoid it, she was a scholar at heart, and the quest to find the truth behind the Human myth had been her life's work.

"Quantum tunnel collapsing in twenty seconds", the Navigator announced.

Izara's pulse quickened.

"Ten seconds"

She clenched her teeth.

"Collapsing"

She felt a sudden force pulling her in all possible directions. Immediately she felt nauseous and started losing her equilibrium. She close her eyes, took a deep breath and steadied herself. The military didn't care much for comfort.

"Class 3 rock planet, habitable. Scanning for electromagnetic transmissions", another of the operators said.

When Izara opened her eyes, she saw the planet filling the view from the bridge's windows. A blue orb with patches of cloudy white scattered around its atmosphere. She released a breath she didn't know she was holding. She picked up a holotablet and started glossing over the data stream from the ship's sensors.

Something was wrong.

"Captain, Sir. The planet appears to be fully covered in water. There are no land masses", the operator said.

Izara's pulse quickened again. That couldn't be. Had she missed something? The references were confusing, but they all pointed in the same direction. The third world. She checked again her holotablet. This had to be it!

"Are we picking up any transmissions?", Captain Kisner asked

"Negative, Sir. This rock is dead"