The Shadow of the Moon-Lydia's Tale

Chapter Seven

Faulke clipped the outer atmosphere at a low trajectory and dropped quickly through the thin swirling gases toward the planet below. The flickering route marked on the inside of his visor sent him hurtling downward toward a churning sea of garish blue luminosity, levelling off he just had time to skip over the head of a giant kraken as it lunged upward at him through the waves before turning his speeding ship toward a low ink smudge of coast line. At the mouth of a turbulent river he banked up, followed a low line of sandbanks for a few moments and then turned inland. The ground flattened out enabling him to drop low over the desert floor, the sound of his drives scattering herds of shaggy hexapedes across the plains before him.  

Picking up altitude he flew over a range of craggy heights before dropping back down again. Before him opened up a giant crater of blackened earth, the ground flashed by the ship in patches of blurred blacks and greys. As he reached its centre he picked up a jumble of large white stones and a featureless, deserted village. For a few seconds his peripheral vision captured some unusually bright markings of something crowded between the houses and the ruin. He flipped the ship over, his warning panel bleeped loudly indicating he'd deviated from his planned route. Dipping his wing he spun around again.  

There! He saw it, without a doubt, a brightly marked nest of human hab pods nestling in the sand. Old star army stock, their dull green hexangular shapes instantly recognisable. Their orange tops marked with sand scarred numbers and a distinctive long trail of footprints running over the dead desert floor to the ruins beyond. At the sound of his engines two small suited figures clearing some boxes outside looked up, dropped the boxes and ran toward the hubs.  

Faulke landed a short distance from the ruin, clipped his air box over his mouth, slipped on his x-shades, popped the hatch and dropped down onto the inert blackened earth. He bent down to scoop up a handful of the dusty gravel, it felt thick and coarse. Thousands of tiny grains of charcoal and fused glass lay in his palm, he allowed it to run through his fingers before brushing his hands off on his jerkin. Walking toward the huts he paused and inspected the ruins. Giant tumbled stones lay strewn, half buried in the sand like the throw of a giant's dice in a game suddenly interrupted millennia ago. Those that remained standing glowed coolly in the odd light; he could make out the form of a decrepit archway and half collapsed wall. Fortification or temple he found hard to tell. 

He pulled off his x-shades and looked up. Vapid pink clouds spun like candyfloss above him, soft and edible. The gently pulsating sun threw a strange pearlescent glow on the omnipresent moon that hung low over the desert turning the ruin into a disconcerting construction of light and shadow that confused the senses.  

Inside the huts the group huddled around the scratched plaziglass viewing panel. 'Holy shit!' said Nape, 'Have you seen this?'  

The impossibly tall rangy figure of Faulke, strode directly toward them, each step covering twice the distance of Napes footsteps marked out in the sand from his constant trips to the temple. Faulke's face, half covered by his oxygen mask, was ovoid flat, dust white, tattooed down one side in a pattern of vivid red and blue glyphs. His piercing jade eyes searched the ruins as he made his way toward the habs. A plume of violet hair, hung heavy with beads shot up from the top of his head and ran down the back of his shoulders like the mane of a wolf. As he walked he rested his hands easily on the wide belt that ran around his midriff, blaster on one side, long curved dagger on the other.  

'Do you think he's friendly?' Jenzen pushed up against the glass and blinked owl-like through his glasses at the goliathan figure stalking toward them. 'Have any of you ever encountered an off-Worlder?'  

'Come-on Jenzen,' Nape rolled his eyes in disbelief. 'With the Re-Generation wars there was no chance of any alien coming to Earth was there? They all hate us. He must be Swarm, he's not human. He's probably an advance scout with the Swarm come to take our scalps.'