Uhlek Badlands
Planetside, 12,112-7
The Coast

The difference in elevation between the dry rocky ground and the wide ocean sea couldn’t have been more than a few feet. Belfast Windfall rested on a spread of brittle beige crust, perhaps fifty meters from the weak waves lapping at the shore. Ux’s engineering team and Nickel and Dime were working to throw camouflage netting over the worn caravel.

Mack raised an eyebrow: “It’s green, Biggs,” he commented, looking at the netting.

“Keep antagonizing me, lieutenant. We’ve got stuff that needs cleaning—besides,” replied Biggs, “we’re just trying to break up the pattern in case the boogeymen are using optics from orbit. Now go roll the rovers down from the bay. No sense being immobile any longer than we have to.” Mack trotted up the ramp and began driving the light rover buggies down from their crates. Biggs picked up his walkie-talkie. “Grix-o, you up there?”

“Rog,” said the bug.

“Keep everything nice and toasty,” Biggs didn’t have to say. “I don’t want to get caught flat-footed if our friends come knocking. Set up a cot on the bridge if you have to, but keep the lights on.” Grix repeated his previous statement and clicked off the link, leaving Biggs to look out over the stark terrain. Dusk here corresponded closely with shipboard time, and he walked over to some stacked tents and tried to see what was what before nightfall set in.

In the baking noon heat of the next day, Arella trounced along the shore in one of the roofless buggies, already sunburned up to her tank-topped shoulders, glancing every few seconds at the scanner readouts. Several kilometers from the Belfast Windfall, she could still see it clearly over the flat surface when she brought the buggy to a halt in the shallow water, tugging on the parking break.

Arella sat listening to the clicking radiator for a moment, then reached down to pull off her boots and roll up the legs on her trousers before hopping into the water barefoot. She grabbed a ration pack from the passenger seat and waded slowly through the shallows, munching peaches as she looked down at the pebbles in the clear water.

Her pocket scanner chirped.
“What’s this?” she asked, fumbling with the peaches and the device. There was a symmetry light blinking, a possible indicator of some artificial structure in the vicinity. Arella glanced about, then smacked the scanner, but it kept blinking. Still chewing, she looked around suspiciously, seeing nothing but flat ocean and flat land. She took another step. Instead of gravel and sand, her foot came down on something smooth. Arella dropped her peaches and stooped to touch a smooth granite stone, cut square and set in place just a handful of inches underwater. Cut into the granite face, there were two words—written Latin characters, she judged.

Arella splashed back to her buggy, absently clicking the button on her walkie-talkie. “Irish Times, Irish Times, this is Southie 4, come in,” she said, walking back through the water to investigate the slab. Short minutes later, two more buggies were kicking up dust on their way to her her signal. Biggs and the senator pulled up in one buggy from the Windfall and Doc Biss rolled up right behind them with the two droids, Nickel and Dime. “Have a look at this,” said Arella.

“Empire English,” said Biggs, looking at the inscription. “What’s it say?”

“It says, ‘The Town,’” whispered HvHuss, reaching into the water to touch the marker. The crew was taken back that a Thrynn from the Confederacy could read Old Imperial english, let alone the Arthenean dialect. All he said to quench their curiosity was, “yesss…words from the lullaby.”

On the still water, almost beyond where eyes could see, there was a gentle rippling.

Deep Space
Uhlek Badlands
Thrynn Frigate Jussru

Exposed to vacuum freeze by a hull breach, the cyclers on the port circulation ventricle dropped below redline temperature, shattering the pipes at two critical juctions. Seconds later, the warning klaxons tripped on the bridge. “Vector in a damage team,” ordered Captain Rssa, trying to grapple with the mess Jussru’s encounter with the Gazurtoid warship had created, “and reroute power to the ssstarboard ventricle.” Rssa surveyed his smoke-filled bridge. Away from the damage control commotion, Colonel Venn’Bk was huddling in a corner with the science officer and the navigator, gesturing down at a star map.

----------
Next: “Guardians”

For you Hilsfar & Company and fans who still peruse the pages of the Nebula Lounge, I’m sorry for the infrequency of postings since around December. As a consolation, I assure you this isn’t one of those internet projects bound to fade into the ether. There are over a dozen installments of “So Long to the City” ready for posting as time permits. See you around space. --Max

Hilsfar & Company