An Untitled Novel

Basil was left in a daze as he hit the ground, finally becoming aware of his situation as he felt himself sliding down the metal ramp that had just finished re-opening. He became very aware of his situation as panic surged through him while he began to fall, but only fell about two feet and hit the ground below the hovering craft. Pain surged through his left arm as he landed face-first in soft dry dirt.

Dry dirt.

Another wave of panic rushed over him. He had entered the craft stepping through mud and grass, but here he was on dry dirt that felt almost like sand. He pushed himself up and looked around, ignoring the protest his left arm gave.

Nothing.

Everything was gone and it was broad daylight. No castle, no walls, no city. Just an empty brown haze as far as he could see. He looked skyward only to see the craft slowly take off before disappearing in a blink. He felt no movement in the craft, and he had only been in there a minute or so, but it must have brought him somewhere else. This had to be somewhere else, right? Basil heard footsteps and presumed they were his fellow compatriots, but was too distracted by the sky to pay any attention to them. Through the haze that the craft flew through sat a brilliant red dot that left spots in his vision when he looked at it.

“What just happened?” Spiro shouted. He moved with a frantic energy he took for granted not having taken two doses of traumatic brain injury and one dose of being stabbed. “What have they done to everyone?” Cicero said in almost a whisper, likely at the horror of the thought that they were standing in a wasteland that was once a city. Cicero picked up Basil’s stovepiped rifle, but Basil decided to ignore its taking for now. He slowly struggled to sit up, and as he did so Spiro turned to Basil as if he would know what was going on. “What happened?” he asked, even more frantic than the last time. Basil sat there for a long time trying to collect his thoughts and hold the wound on his arm together. Cicero and Casio turned to Basil, also seeming to think he would know what was going on. In an instant Spiro’s face changed back to his normal calm demeanor and he appeared to be about to ask Basil another question, but Basil spoke before he could.

“Well, that looks distinctly like a red dwarf star, so let’s Ocam’s Razor this. Either they dumped us on another planet using the ‘demon’s’ spacecraft, or something to do with the ship’s propulsion system sent us so far into the future that your sun has turned into a red dwarf.” The three remained silent, clearly not comprehending what Basil had poorly explained, so he spoke again. “Well, given the best guess is that the beings who the Lizard King’s men referred to as ‘demons’ came from space, my money is on them dumping us here on our own private prison planet.” Basil finished speaking for a second, but then a realization hit him. “Well shit, at least I hope it’s our own private prison planet.”

As the other three remained silent a million thoughts raced through Basil’s mind, but his injury quickly became the top priority. Opening the unbroken vodka bottle in his backpack he took a swig and then poured the rest on his arm. How did they travel here so fast on a ship that never even felt like it moved? He took stock of the cut, it seemed like the muscle below the skin was mostly unharmed, but the cut was wide enough that it did not want to stay closed. Where were they, and how was this atmosphere breathable? Basil tried to duct tape the wound closed, but couldn’t get it to stay closed as the tape wouldn’t bind to the blood and vodka. Who were the beings that the Lizard King’s men likely killed, where did they come from, and why did they not seem to be here? Basil looked at the infographic on suturing ACE had left in the first aid kit. Would the other beings retaliate, and if so, against who?

Basil dug around in his first aid kit and pulled out a single sterile suture pack. Before he continued he looked around to better take in his surroundings. The place was flat, appeared completely dry, and if it were not for the lack of air movement he expected they would be engulfed in dust. The landscape was only dotted with a few rocks and what looked to be a crashed craft. Basil decided to keep that observation to himself for a moment, as Spiro and Cicero began to speak words that Basil did not have the energy to eavesdrop on. Bracing for the pain Basil sewed a few individual sutures. The first few looked fairly good like the infographic displayed, but as he went on and his hands began to shake they got uglier and more unevenly spaced out. Finally finishing the sutures he quickly wrapped the wound in several rolls of gauze and some duct tape to keep the gauze in place.

Finally wrapping up his poor attempt at playing field surgeon, Basil began to think again. Did coming up with such theories on how they got there and of the likely planetary situation confirm that he was likely in the facility in a scientific role? But if he was, and even if he was not, why would he remember what a red dwarf star was while losing every memory he had? But would it even matter if he was or wasn’t a scientist in such a past life? If memories were what made a person, and he had none, then what even was he? His thoughts were interrupted by Spiro. “There” while pointing at the crashed craft. He began walking towards it, followed by Cicero holding Basil’s rifle, and Casio holding the large scavenged blade. Basil collected his things and started to follow behind them.

The four approached the crashed craft, although unlike the two other iterations they had seen this one was smaller and more oval, bordering on circular. Spiro and Basil both drew their sidearms as they heard movement coming from inside it. A being stepped out, very slowly, as if it were afraid of the four creatures that had approached its apparent shelter. To both relief and intrigue, the creature had a fairly human appearance, albeit somewhat unusual. The figure appeared to be that of a woman’s, of which stood over seven feet tall, and didn’t have any hair - even including eyebrows and eyelashes. Aside from lacking any head covering it appeared to be wearing some form of thick spacesuit or other protective clothing, which looked to be made of a flexible metal carrying the same gray-green color the crafts had. The most distinguishing feature the being possessed, however, was skin the same dark gray-green color as the suit and ships.

Basil took a step back in surprise, but lowered his weapon at the same time Cicero and Casio raised theirs, presenting a very discombobulated front. After a moment of hesitation Basil broke the silence. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” Basil spoke in a very slow and monotone voice, attempting to be as audible as he could be. “Yes” replied the being, sounding somewhat hesitant at the situation. “How?” replied Basil, adding “Because if a third civilization shares a common tongue I might just think I’m going insane.” The being suddenly took on an expression that Basil interpreted as sadness, before returning to its fairly expressionless face. “Oh, my mother was a savage like you.”

“Okay, where are we?” Basil asked. “We’re on a dead outpost” the being replied. “Dead as in?” Basil asked for clarification. “Sterilized.” Basil was now only more confused. “What do you mean by ‘Sterilized?’” Basil asked, with a hint of worry in his voice. “A large burst of energy you would not understand killed every living thing” the being replied, seeming somewhat annoyed with Basil’s questions. “Okay, if everything is dead how are we still breathing?” Basil asked, to which the being replied with an abrupt “What do you mean?” Basil spoke again, trying to clarify what he was asking. “Oxygen, what’s producing it if everything is dead?” The being now looked more annoyed and slightly confused. “Whatever oxygen is, if it’s real, it’s not important for breathing.” Basil thought for a moment, confused and wondering if the other being’s DNA was a lot more alien than its figure implied. Then he remembered the comment about calling those on Domum ‘Savages.’ “Do you know what water is?” Basil asked. That was clearly not the right way to word the question, as the being went from seeming mildly annoyed to very annoyed. “Yes, I know what water is.”

Basil responded. “Okay, so water is made up of three parts. Two of them are smaller, both being what I know of as hydrogen. The other one is larger and that’s what I know as oxygen.” The being immediately changed from seeming annoyed to seeming intrigued, in the same way that one would be if a child demonstrated an excellent comprehension of an advanced subject. “Oh, I didn’t know you had a word for that” it replied. Spiro suddenly had an expression on his face that Basil couldn’t make out. “Well, Basil is not exactly from the same place that we are.” The being seemed very intrigued by that revelation. “What do you mean by that, was he not taken by the savage who calls himself a Lizard?” Basil could feel a chill make its way down his aching spine.

“Maybe this is not a good time to talk about that” Basil said, trying and failing to restrict his audibility range to Spiro only. Spiro looked at Basil with confusion. “Maybe she knows about the devices that-” Spiro began to say, but Basil grabbed Spiro’s arm, prompting a momentary surprised look from Spiro and a look of suspicion from the other three present. In a whisper Spiro spoke before Basil could. “We’re all the Lizard King’s prisoners right now, she may be a valuable ally at this moment.” Basil, not wanting to have the conversation in front of the unknown being, replied also in a whisper. “I don’t know how friendly that thing is, or what its motivations are, especially after it invaded a random nation seemingly unprovoked.” Spiro’s eyes went wide for such a minuscule moment Basil almost couldn’t recognize it before his face returned to normal. Basil wondered if that was the Agimoso Ministry of Information training kicking in as Spiro realized the implications of what Basil had implied.

Cicero, however, did not seem happy with Basil and Spiro’s private conversation. “What are you hiding Basil?” Cicero asked. “Not now” Basil responded, although Cicero appeared to believe that now was a good time to have such a debate. “Are you working for the Tyrant, or are you just afraid she will expose you as a fraud?” Cicero added. Spiro attempted to jump into the conversation as the being seemed to get both increasingly curious and suspicious of the group. “Let’s talk for a moment, alone. Remember what I was saying when I was about to introduce you to Basil before all of this happened?” Cicero, however, did not appear to accept such an offer. “Yes, our spies gave the same stories. Magic wrist lights and doors to another planet. I don’t-” Basil glared at Cicero and cut him off while speaking in a borderline shout. “Shut the fuck up, you don’t understand anything about what’s going on right now.” The outburst, however, predictably only caused Cicero to be more angry. Cicero spoke in a slow, very low, and threatening tone. “If you are implying that attacking the Tyrant makes them the enemy-,” but Basil cut Cicero off again. Spiro also tried to speak again, but Basil continued to speak over him.

“They came from another planet and just invaded us, why the fuck would we give information to them?” Basil yelled. “Us?” Cicero asked, now pointing the rifle he did not know was disabled at Basil. Out of the corner of his eye Basil could see Spiro serendipitously level his handgun at Cicero, not seeming to know that Basil’s rifle was currently incapable of firing. Basil elected to not pass along the information.

“Us as in Domum, they probably don’t even know who is who. And they attacked a nation on Domum after coming from another planet.” Cicero still didn’t seem to understand what Basil was trying to say. “As you claim to have come from another as well, shall we distrust you in the same way? But unlike your claims, this one has both made it very evident, and has fought our enemies.” Basil felt incensed, but lowered his voice to match Cicero’s calmer tone. “Yes, and if the first thing I did was attack a random nation when I arrived what would you think I’d do to the second?” Cicero responded in a tone as if he was done speaking. “You did not, however, because I do not believe your story-” but Basil cut Cicero off. As he spoke he could see the being approach slightly and saw Spiro take his handgun off of Cicero before turning his attention to the being.

Basil’s holographic PDA lit up the ground while displaying an iodide-to-water ratio. Cicero jumped and Casio stepped forward holding out his weapon, but Basil stood still and glared at the two before speaking slowly in a very angry voice. “Be quiet and trust I have a better understanding of what’s going on than you do.” Cicero’s eyes went wide, but not as wide as the being’s eyes went. “Orbital” it whispered, as if saying it any louder would summon a great danger, before running into the crashed craft.