Thus the Starfly Vanish
Brian S. Wheeler
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Copyright © 2016 by Brian S. Wheeler
For Kate.
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Contents
Chapter 1 – Invasion of Chimes
Chapter 2 – Sacrifices for Revenge
Chapter 3 – A Realized Anchor
Chapter 4 – A Gallery in the Stars
Chapter 5 – A Painful Price for Permanence
Chapter 6 – The Enemy Is Found
Chapter 7 – Exodus of the Starfly
Chapter 8 – Listening to the Chimes
Chapter 9 – Merciful Invaders
Chapter 10 – Everything Burns
About the Writer
Other Stories at Flatland Fiction
Thus the Starfly Vanish
Chapter 1 – Invasion of Chimes
The sky turned to crystal the day the starfly swarm descended upon the Earth.
None of the great nations’ electronic eyes saw that alien mass approaching from the heavens. The starfly arrived from nowhere. They winked in and out of existence, tricking radars and satellite scans until it was too late for humankind to imagine a defense capable of preventing that swarm from covering the globe in its crystal web.
Most of humanity huddled with loved ones in the shelter of their homes as the atmosphere filled with shimmering filaments of crystal that cast the sky in a strange glow of gold. A few took to the streets to hear the chimes that echoed in the wind as great tendrils of crystal stretched and thickened into a net that trapped any missile or fighter jet the great nations marshalled into the sky. A few among those who took to the streets danced to the music of those chimes, believing the notes to be played from the harps of angels, who came from the stars to announce the messiah’s return and the birth of a new world.
For a moment, it appeared as if angels indeed fell from the sky, for those aliens from the stars possessed great, pulsating wings that reflected the sun’s light into rainbows as the creatures darted in and out of their webbing. They traversed hemispheres in the wink of an eye. They flapped their wide wings and danced about the gunfire and bombs humanity cast against them. The starfly twinkled like snowflakes in the moonlight, and none of humanity’s tanks, ships or guns could harm the swarm that filled the sky with crystal before sweeping over sea and land, so that the end seemed to come to those cruel and cunning creatures with the oversized brains, who for so long believed themselves masters beneath the stars.
But the starfy hesitated just as their swarm choked the magnificent cities built by woman and man. The starfly failed to deliver their final, lethal stroke before vanishing just as quickly as they had appeared.
Yet the crystalline sky remained, hovering in the sky to remind humanity of its frailty. And so the nations of Earth united in the quest for revenge. Man and woman devoted themselves to make the starflies suffer for the casualties the swarm inflicted that day the swarm appeared in the sky.
A common enemy hid in the vast black surrounding the stars, and humanity drew together to hunt the starfly monster.
* * * * *
Chapter 2 – Sacrifices for Revenge
Voices of holographic light filled the sleeping chamber’s cramped space.
“What’s it all for, Kent? What’s all the death and loss about?”
“It’s a lesson, Samantha. It’s a lesson sent from God.”
“A lesson about what?”
“It’s a lesson teaching us to beware of the stars. A lesson warning us against mistaking those stars for heaven. A lesson teaching us that our greatest enemy lurks in the night sky’s black, and not behind the borders of neighbor nations.”
The classroom instructors at Star Point promised Morgan Wilson that inspirational music of patriotic horns would fill his ears the moment he awoke from the deep dreams of frozen sleep. Instead, Wilson awoke to the dialogue a holographic projector crackled into the stale air. Grunting, he pulled the breathing tubes from his nostrils. He cringed and removed the hydration drip’s needle from his forearm. He’d watched that movie flickering in the sleeping chamber’s confines many times over. Who hadn’t watched that film time and again among those who volunteered to carry the fight to the starfly? Wilson knew very well those lines the movie’s hero, Kent White, delivered to his daughter Samantha at the conclusion of that epic film that celebrated the moment humanity turned the tide against the starfly invasion.
“You don’t know that movie well enough by now, Ray?” Wilson groaned. His breath curled even his nose after sleeping so long in his slumber pod. “That movie’s the only thing you ever watched back at Star Point. I would’ve thought you dreamed those scenes over and over again while we drifted through our sleep.”
Cassie Ray winked. “I never get enough of it. It reminds me what it’s all about.”
“You ever need to remember?”
&nb
sp; “No, but sometimes I feel I could use an extra dose of inspiration.”
Wilson nodded as he curled his hands to force feeling back into the extremities of his fingers. Numbness would be a nagging discomfort in the hours ahead after so much time dreaming in the sleeping pod. A dreaming traveler required less food, less oxygen, less resources than a waking sojourner needed, and Wilson realized there was no way to know how long their ship might float through the stars before finding the starfly trail, if a trail was ever found at all. Wilson pulled his legs out of the pod, impressed that his muscles showed no signs of atrophy, further impressed by the technology that kept him in such peaceful slumber without weakening his body. He wondered how long they might’ve drifted during his dreams. How much time had passed since he closed his eyes back at Star Point before he opened them again on whatever starship carried him through the black?
He was tempted to wonder about the family he left behind. Did his younger sister yet graduate from high school? Was she at that moment attending a class back in Star Point? Was she preparing to enter a sleeping pod with her name stenciled on its side in yellow paint? Were his mother and father still alive? Or did so much time pass that they were both in the grave? Did so much time pass that his sister was in the grave?
Wilson shook his head to break his mind away from such questions. Those questions would bring the melancholy, or even the madness. But he wondered for a moment more what questions might’ve been flickering through Ray’s mind. What might’ve she sacrificed for her chance to ride a starship into the stars and personally deliver humanity’s revenge to the starfly?
Ray winked. “You’re looking good, Wilson. All that time snoring in the sleeping pod hasn’t done a thing to your physique.”
Wilson flushed at the compliment. Ray didn’t look so bad herself. She no longer owned the strands of dark hair she had sported before the day arrived at Star Point for her to shave her head and prepare for her sleeping pod dreams, and the loose, gray jumper worn by all those dreaming through space hid much of Ray’s shape that attracted so many eyes back at Star Point. Still, her green eyes remained as vibrant as ever, and Wilson couldn’t resist a quick thought that it was a shame that the sleeping pods only held room for one.
“I feel up for anything.”
“I believe you.” Ray’s green eyes didn’t flinch when Wilson locked his gaze onto her. “But we don’t have the time. We’ve got to hurry to intelligence. The call’s been buzzing in my ear for last ten minutes.”
Wilson sighed. He supposed the miniaturized speaker implanted in his ear canal would beep at any moment. “I just thought we would have a little more time to simply float after we popped out of folded space. I thought we might have a chance to catch a breath.”
“Evidently not. Evidently, we’ve popped out of the fold right on top of something important.”
“We’ve found the starfly home?”
Ray shrugged. “I’m not the one to know.”
Wilson’s ear chimed on cue, and the portal separating their sleeping chamber from the rest of the ship hissed and pressurized before opening to reveal a tall, feminine figure standing in the outer hall. The woman possessed a mechanical, left leg that didn’t bother to conceal the parts numbers and repair notes tattooed upon the synthetic skin. A metallic plate covered half of the woman’s bald crown, no doubt surgically fused to the skull following terrible head trauma.
The woman’s cold, gray eyes flared as they turned to regard the holographic movie floating in the small sleeping chamber.
“Evaporate that light show before I smash that projector to pieces. I don’t want to hear another piece of that dialogue or peek at another foolish scene of that movie again aboard my ship. The movie didn’t get anything at all right about the swarm. The movies never do.”
Wilson’s mind stammered as the woman turned and strode back down the hall. He couldn’t believe who had just stood in the doorway. He wondered if he might still be dreaming. He shared a ship with one of the greatest heroes of that battle against the swarm. He shared a ship with Naomi Parks.
“What do you think she meant when she said the movies never got anything right?”
Wilson flinched. His thoughts remained so focused on that sight of Naomi Parks that he’d forgotten about Ray.
“I think she’s saying that it didn’t happen like the movies show.”
“How so?”
Wilson shrugged. “There was probably more blood and screaming. The Earth armies took it pretty hard the day the swarm filled our sky with their crystal web.”
“Why would the movies hide it?”
“Maybe because it wouldn’t be so easy to get volunteers into the stars if the movies showed the truth of every battle. The blood and gore would probably get in the way.”
Ray frowned. “I think I could swallow the blood and the gore, but I don’t know if I could take the thought that Kent White might not be real.”
Wilson winked. “Oh, the movies never lie about heroes like him.”
* * * * *
Naomi Parks twisted the dials on the interface panel to the intelligence chamber’s holographic projection screen, and the alien craft shaped a little like a long, oblong egg twirled for her regard in the space that floated above the room’s large, central dais. She pinched her fingers, and the glowing ship magnified until its contours filled the chamber’s curving walls. Did that hexagon shape found at the bottom of that strange object her ship’s scanners found floating silently in space represent a kind of portal? Would it be possible to enter that craft if Naomi found the means to cut her way inside? Or was it better to return to a sleeping pod’s frozen dreams and wait, and hope, that the scanners would find an object more indicative of the starfly kind should enough years pass while their ship floated through the stars?
Naomi chalked the operation of alien portals up to one more detail the eggheads back at Star Point failed to anticipate before sending their soldiers into the stars. She realized it was impossible to consider all of the potential problems waiting to be found beyond Earth’s embrace, but Naomi believed that Star Point could’ve nonetheless reserved a bit more time and worked a little harder to anticipate more dangers. She thought some egghead back at the labs would’ve considered how a soldier might gain entrance to an alien construct discovered in the stars.
Naomi scratched at an itch that resided below the gears of her synthetic, left knee. That itch never went away, but the expensive alloys of her false limb prevented her fingers from ever soothing the nuisance. She scratched at her scalp. Naomi hadn’t shaved for days, and the stubble sprouting from her skin likely wouldn’t survive the most cursory of Star Point inspections. She had no reason to care. The newbs winking out of their cold sleep would be too enthralled to discover they served aboard a ship captained by a great hero in the battle against the starfly invasion. They would remain too enamored by all those holographic action movies long enough for Naomi to find the time, and the motivation, to shave her head, to polish the buttons of her uniform and to adjust her natural dialect just so to match the enunciation of the holoscreen superstar who played her part in all the films.
The door to the intelligence chamber chimed before opening like a camera shutter to reveal the pair of young Earth soldiers assigned to Naomi’s craft.
“Ensign Wilson reporting.”
“Ensign Ray at the ready.”
Naomi couldn’t ignore the enthusiasm that cracked the voices of her crew. She couldn’t say the admiration glazing their eyes pleased her. Naomi feared those ensigns saw her as some kind of action figure made of plastic and rubber bands, as a toy that didn’t break after dropping from a dangerous height, like a toy that couldn’t drown no matter how long she might’ve been abandoned at the bottom of a bathtub. The eggheads at Star Point would no doubt tell her that the awe written upon the faces of Wilson and Ray promised her the degree of loyalty needed to watch Naomi’s back should she actually find a starfly, but Naomi worried that the awe her holographic doppelg?
?nger inspired would kill her before she had the smallest chance of making a single starfly pay for the destruction the alien creatures dealt the Earth.
“Wipe the smiles off your faces,” Naomi grumbled. “The two of you will only tax our oxygen generators if you can’t control the pace of your heartbeats.”
“It’s an honor to wake up on your ship, Captain Sparks.” Ray beamed.
Wilson’s grin stretched across his face. “We won the lottery when we were assigned to your vessel.”
“I would save the excitement for the moment we actually accomplish something out in the middle of all this nothing.”
Naomi hoped Wilson and Ray were under no impression that either of them had been assigned to her craft based on whatever skills either may have owned. She knew firsthand what it was like to fight the starfly. She knew a solider didn’t see that enemy until it was too late, if a soldier ever caught a glimpse of a starfly at all. The eggheads back at Star Point did their best to ignore the fact, but Naomi realized the greatest rifleman or stealth pilot had no more chance of surviving a starfly onslaught than any untrained fool taken off the street. Had it been left to her, Naomi would’ve had no one accompany her on her dark, swift scoutstar named the “Retribution.”
But the eggheads would never grant her a scoutstar without at least a skeleton crew. A person could perish a million different ways in space, without finding a scent of the starfly trail. Star Point believed wisdom dictated that every ship launched to pursue the enemy hold a crew that was at least trained to properly point a scoutstar back home following a catastrophe. Naomi had only shrugged when the eggheads asked her if she wanted to take the opportunity to hand select her crew. She told them it didn’t matter who they found to shove into the confines of her scoutstar. And so the eggheads, adamant that every cadet who graduated from their academy was as competent as another, randomly drew the names of Wilson and Ray when they selected those to compose Naomi’s crew.