Orphans - Kevin Killiany [44]
But the gnomes had left and the giants had returned to their slumber beneath the hills and the world was again home only to the People.
And it was their heroes the People remembered. Two warlords, each at the head of a mighty army and each with cheeks matted with tears at the sight of living newborns. Two leaders and one promise: “We will talk.”
On that foundation was the Alliance formed. With those words the last war of all the Journey ended.
* * *
“Do you suppose the Klingons will ever tell us how this ends?” Gomez asked.
She was standing to the right of Gold’s command chair, watching the screen as the People’s vessel—they had no name for it—spun in the darkness. The da Vinci was so close there was a definite sense of “down” to their perspective. The new navigational array swung into view, then off the screen in a matter of seconds.
“According to Kortag, it won’t end for another two centuries,” Gold said. “That’s how long it will take the People to reach the world the Empire is giving them.”
“That strikes me as uncharacteristically generous,” observed Tev from the aft stations.
“No exploitable resources, no strategic value, no animal life above trilobites, and it stinks of carbon dioxide,” Gold said. “It’s exactly the sort of world they’d want to give away.”
“Lieutenant Conlon reports that the plasma injectors are fit to carry us as far as Deep Space Station K-7,” Haznedl reported. “We can get under way at any time.”
“Any unfinished business here, Gomez?” Gold asked.
“Pattie?” Gomez passed the question to the structural engineer at the auxiliary science station next to Tev.
“Structural integrity fields and thruster network are both operating at optimal efficiency,” Pattie answered, her dagger ticking against her breastplates as she turned from the diagnostic display. “Our mission is technically complete.”
“Personally, I’d like to spend another month,” Gomez said. “Just to solve the mystery of where the People came from.”
“Spectral analysis of their artificial sunlight does not match any of the suspected source systems,” Tev said with the air of one pointing out the obvious.
“Occam’s razor indicates they are refugees from the Luri Cloud. More precisely, a planet orbiting the sun that exploded to create the Luri Cloud.”
“That would make the ship close to two thousand years old,” Gomez said. “Why would they lock their descendants into a medieval culture for two thousand years?”
“You’ll have to double-check with Abramowitz,” Gold said, “but maybe they thought that was a viable level of technology for colonizing an uninhabited world. Once the crew got them down, they could survive on their own. A higher tech society would need support till it was established.”
“Maybe.” Gomez sounded unconvinced. “But it left them helpless in the face of radiation poisoning.”
“The builders assumed the crew would always be on hand to deal with mechanical problems.”
“They also assumed neighboring solar systems contained uninhabited Class-M planets ripe for their colonization,” Tev observed. “Was that hubris or a lack of imagination?”
“More likely lack of choice,” Gold said. “They were building a lifeboat, after all.”
“Message from the Qaw’qay’, sir,” Shabalala said.
“They remind us we are fourteen minutes from Klingon space.”
Tev snorted.
“Wong, lay in a course for Deep Space Station K-7,” Gold said. “We’ve got work to do.”
About the Author
KEVIN KILLIANYlives in Wilmington, NC, with his wife Valerie and their three children: Alethea, Anson, and Daya. Kevin has been writing since grade school, and writing Trek since he first discovered fanfic in 1972. However, because he “knew” one could never make a living at writing, he never pursued it as a career. Instead, he earned his living as an actor, soil technician, photographer, bus driver, special education teacher, warehouse manager, and media distribution specialist (paperboy)—not necessarily in that order and often concurrently. During those years he did write, and since 1990 his essays