This one was inspired by the terrific Fantasy and Sci-Fi Writing Prompts page on Facebook, so cheers, Meredith. 🙂

 

They were two days out when they saw it. It danced and span between the nebulas, throwing its arms of fire-laced wind miles out into space. First Mate McGinty said it was a space serpent and the crew weren’t fast to disagree with him.

But he knew what it was. He’d seen one before. Indeed, he’d been through one before. But what Captain Talis would never tell the crew was that the last time he’d faced a tornado, only one man had come out alive. And that was the man now gripping the tiller with iron-tight hands and a face set like plasticrete.

They’d all seen them from afar. It was from tornadoes such as these that tales of space serpents and dragons had sprung. But normally they were half a solar system away, wrapped around some hapless planet or playing marbles with meteors.

This one lay in their path and there was no escaping it. The solar winds took them down paths long travelled and whilst those paths shifted, any brave enough to sail them were still at the mercy of the routes they took. Map makers had long since given up trying to plot the winds. Talis had learnt the routes from his old captain, before the ‘serpent’ took him and the rest of the crew.

Now the Sun Dancer was his and his only hope was that he wouldn’t be the only one left standing when they came through.

If they came through.

A sleepless day and night passed and the tornado filled their future. The winds had rushed them past Sinar, the closest planet to this star and they were approaching what had, until now, always been Talis’s favourite part of the journey. They would skirt the flares on the edge of the star and get the energy to blast out into space and into a new system.

Their destination was L’Lastinar, where they would unload their cargo and take on new for the next leg. It would be nearly two years before they would pass back this way. By then, the storm would have blown itself out. The conglomeration of flares and tides that created one would have moved on.

But none of that mattered now. Talis stared into the tornado, daring it to stare back. It looked like a serpent. It filled space in both directions, a slate grey serpent hundreds of miles wide and endlessly spinning and dancing. From its mouth and claws came fire, solar flares sucked up by the pressure and spat out as warning to the unwary traveller.

But no traveller could see what lay before them and be anything but wary. Talis though his crew were a little more than wary. Some, the older hands, had already strapped themselves to something. McGinty was in place beside the wheel, but he hadn’t tied himself down before strapping Talis’s hands to the wheel.

It was the act of a good First Mate, but there was more than blind loyalty involved. It would be Talis’s steering that got them through the maelstrom. His knuckles whitened against the wheel as he felt the first pull.

Their path was lit before them, streaks of sun fire running beneath the ship, dragged along by the winds. And that path ran straight into the dragon’s belly. He shook his head. Now even he was thinking about it as some mythical beast.

Perhaps that was right. This was no natural phenomenon. This was a monster, to be fought and tamed.

He clenched his teeth until they hurt and flashed a sharp grin at his First Mate. McGinty fired one right back, nodding as the prow of the Sun Dancer began to buck.

One last glance back. His crew were all tied on now, clinging to every line they could wrap their hands around. He would get them through. He would because he had to. The cargo below was too precious to let go to the whimsy of the solar winds.

She was kicking now, bucking and pitching as the tornado took hold.

‘All sails to full.’

McGinty’s eyebrows rose and he swung his head back and forth as though trying to out do the ship. But Talis had seen this before and he remembered what they had done last time. The softly softly approach didn’t work. They had to charge into the eye before they were torn apart.

The winds were driving across the deck, carrying heat with them that burnt away his eyebrows in seconds. It wasn’t the first time. Lines caught and extinguished just as fast as the charms did their jobs. His crew were moving, but too slowly.

‘Sails to full, NOW!’

The men jumped lively, looping ropes around themselves as they crab crawled across the deck. The sails ran up and caught the wind and the Sun Dancer leapt forward like a scalded whipcat. Talis took one last look at the dark of space before they plunged into the serpent.

The solar winds wrapped them up and chewed on them. Gusts the temperature of the sun and faster than even the Fleet’s Destroyers hammered across the decks. The Sun Dancer screamed in protest, every rivet eager to escape and join the twisting terror that railed around them.

His face cracked and burnt, and he watched the skin on his hands peel in seconds. The sails cracked and snapped beneath the pressure, but they stayed whole. And the ship moved forward, cutting through the storm.

Screams reached him but he couldn’t look back. His eyes were fixed on a point far ahead of him. It looked like the tavern he knew awaited them on the docks of L’Lastinar. It looked like the pint of beer that would be thumped to the wood and the woman who lived above the tavern who had promised to keep her bed warm just for him.

He saw all of those things in his mind’s eyes and he knew he would see them for real in only a few short days. The winds screamed and his crew screamed and still he faced forwards. Some primordial creature had hold of a whip made from baking hot wind and drove it across his shoulders.

Talis dropped to one knee, held up only by the ties that kept him attached to the wheel. He heard the crew gasp as one as they saw their captain fall. For a moment, Talis contemplated staying on his knees. The winds would tear the ship from his grasp and his arms would break. The Sun Dancer were be swept away and he would no longer have to cling on.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw the eyes that begged him. He gripped the wheel tighter and pulled himself back to his feet. His men neither cheered nor clapped, but he could feel the change, the belief that came flooding back just as quickly as it had fled.

The ship was turning, the tornado threatening to pull it off course. He heaved on the wheel and McGinty joined him, adding his weight to the effort. Slowly, agonisingly slowly, the Sun Dancer came around. The path they followed was visible only as the lightest, palest lines that ran at odds with the storm. But it was there, guiding them on.

He held the wheel as the storm held his ship and he steered them through.

Tears ran down his face and his shoulders ached when the sound dropped and the serpent spat them out. Ragged cheers rose up from the crew but he turned so fast and so aggressively that they were silenced in an instant.

‘We’re at the centre, no further. This is the calm, gentlemen, prepare yourselves.’

There were groans and mutterings, but there were just as many shouts and exhortations. Already they had done what so few lived to tell. They were halfway through and they could make it the rest of the way. Talis faced forward, face set.

The second part was always the toughest.

The calm gave them time to reset and check the sails. Six crew were gone, stolen from the decks, but the rest stood firm. His chest swelled. It had taken years to lure anyone back to the Sun Dancer after he had limped into port, a lone sailor with no words to describe what had come before.

He closed his eyes, seeing again the storm that had stolen his captain and his friends. In his mind’s eye, he imagined the serpent had swept its claws across the deck and gobbled up his companions in greedy jaws. But when he opened his eyes, all he saw was the wall of wind, filling his horizon and mocking him.

There were no serpents. There were just the vagaries of a universe that mocked all and any who tried to tame her. He was one such and he knew he would never tame her. But a beast didn’t need to be tamed to be ridden. He just had to hold on hard enough and long enough.

‘WE’RE GOING IN.’

The prow shifted, the pull of the wind jerking at the wheel. Talis set his feet and held on…

 

The Sun Dancer limped into port three days later. The stern mast was gone and the port side cabin nothing more than a pile of twisted metal and plastic. Of the twenty seven men who had set out from Titan, fourteen remained.

Those fourteen were changed. Their eyes stared wildly about them, as though searching for danger in every place they looked. They tramped down from the ship and into the tavern where their Captain bought them all drinks. He sat himself on the stool at the far end and sipped quietly, watching his crew. The locals said that his eyes were different. From his eyes, it was said, a serpent stared back.

The precious cargo was unloaded later that day and beneath the watchful eyes of the crew, twenty four barrels were rolled gently down the gang plank and along the quay. Stamped on each was the word that made the contents of the barrels worth more than any amount of guns or liquor. They held the one thing that the men who rode the Sun Dancer would go back through the tornado for again and again.

McGinty settled himself beside Talis, thumbs hooked in his belt. ‘Chocolate’s unloaded, Captain. What are we taking on for the next leg?’

 

 

 

Have you been wondering how brilliant scientists can send a space ship millions of miles, yet mess up something as simple as landing gear? Me too. It turns out, there is a very good reason why Philae failed to land properly. To learn the truth, read on…

 

Lah wasn’t much to look at. He knew it and everyone else did too. Three feet tall, the sort of grey you found round the dark side of the comet and completely bald. In those respects, he was identical to the rest of his extended family.

It was the fine details where he failed.

His nose was a little too large and his ears a touch on the small side. His eyes looked like they were trying to mate and his arms hung half a foot lower than the rest of the tribe.

He had been reminded of these deficiencies for much of his childhood and things hadn’t changed much since. Every time the comet span, he rose from his tiny bed deep in the rock, scratched his way out through the tunnels and onto the surface.

That’s when it began. The snide remarks, the nudges that sent him spiraling away from the comet on his bungee whilst all the others laughed. Decades had passed and still they picked on him and still they bullied him. Even the mother didn’t treat him with the same love and devotion she gave the rest.

It had gotten bad recently. In the last few years he’d started to dream of the inevitable Day of Wonder. One day soon, their tiny home would change and become a glorious meteorite. On that day, they would plunge through the atmosphere of some distant planet and life as they knew it would end.

He longed for it. He would lie in his bed, stare at the stone inches from his nose, cross all eighteen fingers and toes and pray that the next day they would find that elusive planet.

But today would be different. Because Lah was going to catch God.

The great and mighty being had arrived a few days ago and now span around their tiny home, over and over again. For the first few hours, they had stood and stared, mouths open wide in amazement. Once they realised it wasn’t going to speak to them, they went back to their work.

But Lah’s mind had started turning and when it did, wonderful things happened. They mocked him and laughed at him, but they all knew he was smarter than them. He wondered sometimes whether that wasn’t why they were so cruel.

He had stopped mentioning the automatic crane arm that they now relied on for most of the work. The crane arm he had invented. He’d stopped even thinking about the space nets that caught their food. The space nets he’d created. They knew, just as well as he, that without his expertise, they would still be grubbing around in the minerals, instead of living like little grey kings.

Nowadays, he kept quiet and kept mining. But the arrival of God had changed everything. Today he was going to show the rest of his extended and narrow-minded family they were wrong to mock him.

He slipped from his bed shelf and out into the corridor. He gave the dust shower a cursory glance of his body and pulled on his overalls. As he did every day, Lah sniffed at the drab grey material. Given more time away from mining, he could create something wonderful to wear. Something with colours.

He reached the surface, clipped on his bungee, and the father pressed a pick into his hands. He joined the others and soon found himself hacking away at the dirt grey rock of their home. Tiny flecks of stone flew off into space and he paused to watch one.

As if it knew his thoughts, it turned and turned until it brushed past God. The mighty being hung above them, its wings spread wide and shining in the light from the distant sun. In its centre, the red, flashing eyes were still staring down on them.

Did it judge them?

He had to imagine so. But what did it see? Did it see their hard work? Did it see his mind, whirring and thinking? He liked to think so. It was, after all, God, so surely it saw everything.

Lunch break came and he put down his pick with shaking hands. The time had come to enact his masterful and daring plan. He crouched, bracing his legs for the jump. His heart pounded against his tiny ribs and he rubbed his chest in a vain attempt to slow it. He could do this.

He stared up at God and everything stopped. God was changing. He came out of his crouch, mouth falling open. God was opening and inside was a creature. Small and hexagonal and covered in beautiful silvery panels, it spoke to him. That was when he realised. The mighty craft they had been watching wasn’t God.

This was God. This perfect little machine being exposed beneath the craft was the real deity. Then he realised something else.

It was going to land.

He came out of his crouch and raced back through his family, ignoring the usual sniggers and sneers. He needed to figure out where it was coming down. He unclipped as he dashed into the tunnels. He slithered to his room, pulled out his toolkit and scurried back up to the surface.

The craft was still opening. But the landing would be soon. He set up his seeing eye and got a closer look. It was even more beautiful close up and he could see fire emerging from the back of God. It was angry. Either that or it was firing a propulsion device to bring it down to the surface.

Considering the faultless hard work it had observed, Lah figured it was more likely to be readying itself for a descent. He had already tracked and recorded the orbit of God and now he set off to follow it.

The surface of his home was pitted and mountainous, rising and falling faster than his peers’ opinions of his worth, and chasing God was hard work. But it was worth it. The great being shook and came free of its craft and in that moment, he knew exactly where it would land.

Beh’s plateau. It was flat, smooth and the perfect place from which God could survey him and his family. He scrambled across the comet until he reached the plateau and got himself set. He would need to secure God the moment it touched down. He also had to be certain it couldn’t escape.

Lah stretched ties across the plateau and set up his electronic counter measures. Once he was done, he hunkered down just over the edge and waited. Sure enough, a few minutes later, God hove into view.

He couldn’t contain himself and squeaked and squeaked as the great being came closer. So shiny. So straight and neat and ordered. God came closer still. Lah paused with his finger over the button. Was he sure he wanted to do this? It felt like sacrilege, but he couldn’t stop himself. Once he’d caught God, they couldn’t look down on him, not ever again.

He thumbed the button and watched with wide eyes as the legs sprouting from beneath God halted halfway out. He’d done it. The mighty being landed on the ties and Lah held his breath.

They didn’t spring closed.

What was going on? He leapt out from hiding and began to check the tensions, but it was too late.

His eyes narrowed and he clawed the rough stone as God struck the comet and bounced off. As it sailed back into space, Lah chased it with a howl of frustration. God was leaving. God couldn’t leave, not when he was so close to finally finding his redemption.

But he was watching its flashing red lights dwindling into the blackness far above his head and there was nothing he could… he slapped his little grey head and shook it. There was something he could do. He scrabbled back to where he left his pack and pulled out his stuff.

Scraps of electronics salvaged from the space nets and tied together with chunks of clumsy solder formed the huge device he held in his hands. He opened the back and tweaked it, pulling wires out and moving them here and there. Satisfied, he slapped the back in place and switched it on. It came alive with a hum and he smiled. He could do this.

Lah twisted dials and listened with his tiny head cocked to one side. His machine made buzzes and clicks and whirrs, but through it came the unmistakable sound of circuitry, live circuitry. He tuned in on the signal and sent out a homing beacon. Sure enough, the signal changed and responded, calling back to him.

He was speaking to God.

He whooped and giggled, then stopped himself. It couldn’t land here. Everyone would know it was here and that wouldn’t work. They’d take it from him. They’d steal his secret and take God apart to see how it ticked. Lah scooped up his pack and started to run.

He dashed across the barren landscape, darting round towers of rock shorn smooth by the solar winds. He raced down canyons and through narrow defiles until he reached his secret spot. It was perfect.

He checked his machine and nodded. It was still a long way out, but it was communicating with him. He was getting other signals also. Something, or someone, was trying to communicate with it. Someone else thought they could talk to God.

He grinned, showing his little sharp teeth, and upped the power on his box of tricks. The other signal faded away and God’s voice came through loud and clear. Now he just had to wait.

It was the longest three hours of his life. Every second that passed brought God a little closer. But it was also another second that might mean someone came out looking for him. They rarely did when he went walkabout. It wasn’t like there was anywhere for him to go and when night fell, he had to be in the tunnels. But still, just the thought of it made him shiver and wrap his arms around himself.

The hours passed, agonisingly slowly, until God came into view. The red lights flickered as it came down and underneath the cliff. Lah set his machine down and stepped back, bowing and resting his forehead against the cold rock.

God landed.

Its feet hadn’t extended fully and it sat at an angle.

Lah watched God.

God watched Lah.

He was about to creep closer when God made a series of beeps and began to move. First, tiny drills emerged from beneath it and drove into the stone. Then other devices came out, sniffing the rock and flicking at it.

It all looked a little mundane. Lah watched for as long as he could before he had to race back to the cave as night fell. The night was long and he slept for little of it. The second the day bell went, he was up and racing once more across the surface of his home.

God was still there. He leant against the rock and waited until his thumping heart slowed before approaching. God was beeping quietly to itself, the red lights flashing on and off.

He spent the day with it. Sometimes he spoke to it. He told it the tales of his people. He told it their dreams and their beliefs and how he had always known that God would one day come, as it had so many years ago. He told it his own dreams, even the guilty ones that would bring his life to an end. He told it about the bullying and the mocking and how much he hated his life.

Sometimes he just watched. The drills would pop out now and then, as did the arms. The beeping went on and off. The lights flashed. It was thrilling. And slightly boring.

Perhaps it wanted something. He sneaked back into the caves and pinched some minerals from the kitchen. He tried to feed God, but there wasn’t anywhere he could put them. He ended up scattering them beneath it for the drills to grind into.

Night time came again and he sloped grudgingly back to his bed. God was hungry and he didn’t know how to feed it. God was thirsty, but what could he give it to drink? He slept better that night, but woke with no more idea of what he could do.

He was heading out once more when the father caught him.

‘Now, now, Lah, one day off is more than enough.’

‘But father—’

‘No. There is mining to be done and although you work more slowly than your brothers and sisters, still you must contribute.’

It wasn’t true. He worked just as fast as they did. He worked faster than some. But they weren’t smart like him. And they didn’t have funny, close-together eyes. He scowled, accepted the pick and went to work.

He didn’t have the chance to visit God again that day. He slowed on his way back to the tunnels, but night was falling and he couldn’t make it there and back in time. He growled and climbed reluctantly into his bed.

The next day he was up before the bell and waiting for the distant sun to crack across the pitch black of the comet. When it came he was out, clipping on his bungee and racing down towards his secret spot.

God was still there! He picked up his pace, smile finally creeping across his face. It wasn’t until he was almost there that he slowed. The smile fell and he dropped to his knees.

The red lights were gone. God was dead. Or sleeping. Perhaps it was just resting. It would wake soon. He crawled across the last few feet and sat with his back against the wall, staring at the tiny eyes in God’s side.

He waited.

The day passed and God slept on.

The next day was the same. And the next. Every morning he would leave the caves before the day bell and race to check on God and every day would be the same.

Lah had failed. Somewhere between the food and the drink, he had failed God and left it to die. He sobbed for days, inconsolable. All he could think was that if he hadn’t tried to catch God, none of this would have happened.

He had killed God.

As the days passed, he stopped sitting beside God. Instead he would climb up the cliff and sit atop it, staring up into space. God’s craft still circled his home, waiting patiently. Did it know something Lah did not? What secrets did it house inside its shell?

As time went by, the first seeds of an idea crept it. If he could just get up there…