Madoc

The scream of klaxons battered any other noise into submission. Strobing red lights flashed in measured beats, operating in tandem with the klaxons to alert all the passengers to something they all already knew. They were crashing. Rather slowly admittedly; but the ship’s engines were failing, the gravity generators fluctuated between no gravity to oppressive gravity, and masks were being passed out to all those that needed oxygen.

Madoc and the rest of the several hundred passengers kept staring at the cause of all their problems. A teenage boy with a rather luxurious, thick, fake mustache that was glued, somewhat crookedly, to his top lip. The boy was oblivious to the obvious anger being generated at him as he spoke to the rest of his party in a whiny voice, complaining loudly enough to be heard over the klaxons, about the poor state of the ship and that his father would never have allowed this to happen.

Madoc looked away from the incognito noble and back at one of the few screens still showing their slow crash toward the planet below them. The good news was that the planet was habitable. That's where the good news ended. Madoc had to keep a sigh suppressed, it was just his luck that he ended up on a ship with, what was turning out to be, the most convoluted custody case in the galaxy. It had taken all of ten minutes for everyone to identify the weasley noble child and realize that this was his fault. Or rather, his feuding parents fault, but they weren’t around to be angry at.

After all, if your father and mother were two of the most powerful independent nobles on the frontier, their divorce and subsequent custody fight quickly became common gossip. Why the boy was on a public shuttle coming out of Imperial space was anyone's guess. The knot of bodyguards who exuded a palpable air of violence prevented anyone from asking too many questions.

Looking around at the handful of people in his section, Madoc quickly reviewed them. It was best to know who he was going to be stranded with on a very hostile planet. After all, many species viewed meat as protein, regardless of its source. He had no desire to be eaten.

Only a few people were in his section, most having abandoned it for any of the common areas until the ship began its eventual descent into the atmosphere. Sammuel was a rather florid and rotund human male. With round red cheeks, snow white skin, and twinkling blue eyes he made a merry figure sitting by himself humming as he played on a small tablet computer. His tousled red hair was a curly mess on his head that wobbled everytime the ship lurched as one of the engines sputtered.

Tieurl was a few seats down, curled up on herself with her whiskers twitching in annoyance as she read a bent in half book. Madoc felt a flicker of annoyance at seeing the book abuse, but kept his opinion to himself. The eight foot tall beastwoman would likely take any criticism poorly. She had shown her poor temper a few times already, dented bulkheads and two men in the infirmary were more than enough to have everyone give her plenty of space.

Madoc couldn’t help but steal glances at her though. The orphanage had plenty of the more common races that existed in the Empire, but beastpeople often lived out on the frontier. They weren’t a singular people, but the term was used as a catch-all for any race that looked more animalistic. They were a rare sight and the large woman looked like an onyx jaguar with emerald eyes that swept back and forth taking in everything around her. He couldn’t help but wonder how her natural strength and razor sharp claws would go against his blade. She would make a wonderful sparring partner.

An assorted trio rounded out the rest of the section. A pale blue gnome, hardly four feet tall with a long white beard and eyes of the deepest black. He wore a variety of purples in layers, all of it thick and soft looking. His smile of pointed teeth was on constant display as he talked and pointed frequently with his long finger at his two companions. Madoc hadn’t managed to get the gnome's name earlier, and now that he had isolated himself, it felt rude to go and ask for it. Those pointed teeth made him nervous though.

His companion was some type of saurian. Six feet of pebbled skin and round eyes, dagger teeth, long claws, and a deep chortling huffing sound that Madoc could only assume was language. Its pale yellow eyes were round orbs that were fixated on the front of its long head. Madoc had heard its name, but lacked the vocal cords to produce the growls and yips to produce it. He had heard the gnome call it Nobbs.

The final of them was a race that Madoc was very familiar with. She originated from the same world the abbess who had run the orphanage came from. Or at least from one of their many colonies. An Argentum Elf. Long pointed ears that disappeared into thick tresses of tightly coiled white blond hair, her skin had a faint inner glow that gave her an otherworldly appearance. Dark tattoos ran across her bare arms, twisting runes that flowed into long scripts. Madoc’s education was spotty to say the least, but he had seen that writing in the abbess’s office. It was High Argentum, meant for use in aether runes. The elf turned and fixed him with a glare; her mismatched eyes, one ice blue the other a dark void, filled with suspicion. Madoc averted his gaze and looked back towards Sammuel.

The large red head was looking at him with a smile as he had observed the brief non-verbal interaction. Madoc offered a tight lipped grin back at him and the other man put away his tablet and leaned forward in the too small seat. Madoc leaned forward so that their heads were only inches away, the blaring klaxon making it impossible to talk normally otherwise.

“I’m Sammuel!” he yelled, his voice barely audible over the howling alarms.

“I’m Madoc!” Madoc replied, offering his hand for a shake. Sammuel took it and Madoc felt a thrill of fear as the other man's hand completely engulfed his hand. Sammuel was large, filling out the seat around him, his hands were like dinner plates. They were also heavily calloused, calluses that Madoc recognized. They were swordsman callouses.

The only people who bothered to use swords or other primitive weapons were aether cultivators or those of the divine. Their strength made traditional weaponry ineffective against opponents of similar skill, instead they trained and used aether reinforced weapons. Swords like Madoc had packaged above his head in a travel case. Madoc was now certain that Sammuel had a case similar to his own stowed not far away.

“Is this your first time out of the Empire?” Sammuel asked.

“How do you know I’m Imperial?”

“You’re accent gives it away. Sound just like the holocast news people.” Sammuel replied, instantly his small grin spreading into a wide smile.

“Yes, it’s my first time to the Frontier!”

“How exciting then. First time and you get to experience piracy!”

It wasn’t so much exciting as anxiety inducing. The entire attack had happened so fast that Madoc hadn’t even realized they were under attack until after the fact. Their ship, the Jolly Walker, had managed to jump nearly instantly. The pirates had only managed one attack in an attempt to disrupt their engines, so they could land boarding parties. Which is why, they were all now tumbling slowly toward a hostile planet.

“I could have done without the pirate attack truthfully!”

“It’s my first time off world too! The stories from this will be incredible!”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Madoc decided that Sammuel had a few screws loose. They were going to crash land on a planet that had minimal habitation, the site of a battle from the Eternity War apparently. The powers unleashed during the Eternity War were infamous, their effects nearly permanent on the worlds that had hosted the bloodbaths. There would be monsters, mutated animals, bandits, outlaws, and possibly even rogue gods. They were all likely going to die or be eaten. Madoc had been thinking alot about being eaten in the last few hours. More than he had ever done in his whole life before today.

“I think we have a different opinion on what incredible means!”

“Oh, don’t be a worry wart. The captain has already sent out a distress call. We will probably be rescued before we even crash land!” Sammuel waved away all of the myriad of concerns with a wide hand.

They didn’t get rescued before they crashed.

The trip through the atmosphere had not been pleasant. Madoc had managed to hold tight to his seat, white knuckling the entire bumpy journey. Sammuel had been laughing as the ship bucked and shuddered underneath them, heat wafting through the spaces as the ship's safety shields failed. Sweat drenched, the sudden jarring stop had tossed Madoc against his restraints hard enough, he feared that even his reinforced bones had been broken. Whiplash caused his head to snap back and forth, impacting the hard cushion that he had rested his head against the entire trip with a blow that had him seeing double.

The infernal klaxons had finally stopped, a remnant of their shrieking cry still haunted him though. The red light of the alarms flared every other second, the only light they had in the suddenly dark ship. Madoc struggled with his safety harness, vision spinning as his suddenly clumsy fingers failed to get the latch to release.

A shape appeared between the strobes of light. Towering in the darkness; the red light shimmering along her slick fur, Tieurl reached out with ivory claws and slid them between flesh and synthetic straps. A flex of her wrist and the restraints parted like twine and Madoc was slumping free to fall in a heap at the large beastwomans feet. Tierul ignored him, moving around the section like a primeval nightmare, freeing each of the trapped occupants.

Madoc struggled to his feet, cursing his own stunted self. If he had access to his natural strength, he would be standing fine. He wouldn’t have needed any assistance to free himself, and the blow to his head would have been an annoyance rather than what was likely a minor concussion.

“You ok?” Sammuel asked. The large man was standing unaided, his voice deep and soft in the relative quiet of the ship.

“Just a headache. Hit my head on the back of my seat.”

“Ahh, that would do it. Hold for a minute and let me get my gear free and then we can get outside of the ship. We should have landed dayside.”

“How do you know?”

“It would make sense. We still had minor control of the ship. Why would the captain aim us for the darkside of the planet? We need light, post crash, to set up any type of camp.”

“That makes sense.” Madoc clutched at his head with one hand as he tried to open up the locker above his seat. The lock was twisted, but the cheap steel was easy enough to pry apart. Metal shriek as he tugged, his fingers wedged in the handle as the door suddenly flew free as the lock broke. His sword case was still there. He hadn’t left his seat since stowing it, there was no way for it to have left, but he still felt good about seeing the hard plastic case.

The case and sword were the only things he had taken from the orphanage when he had left, aside from the clothes on his back and a single ticket. That his ticket had managed to make it only two jumps of the nine planned before crash landing was unfortunate. Madoc’s plans were in wild disarray, and even though he was now shipwrecked, he couldn’t help but think of how he would have to go about to accomplish his goals now.

Money. It would solve nearly all of his immediate concerns. After escaping the planet that was. He shoved the errant thoughts away, blaming his addled state on the blow to the head he had sustained. He wasn’t normally so scatterbrained.

Grabbing the case by the handle, he decided not to arm himself just yet. Instead he turned and got a glimpse of Sammuel pulling out a case similar to his own, but wider. They turned together and started to work their way out of the ship. Sounds from behind them gave hints that other survivors were stirring and beginning to make their way out too. The luminescent arrows on the floors that lead to emergency exits were helpful. Madoc didn’t know if he would have been able to navigate the dark labyrinth without them.

As they moved from section to section, alway following the blue-white arrows, every strobe revealed new sights. Crumpled bodies. Still forms. People whose own bodies weren’t quite as resilient to crash landing. The severity of the situation was beginning to assert itself on him as they worked their way free. While Sammuel was ignoring the dead, softly humming to himself as he walked, Madoc couldn’t help but stare at them. Just hours ago, they had been thinking people with dreams and hopes. Now, they were just broken sacks of meat.

“Life is cheap on the Frontier. The Empire has its problems, but it is relatively safe. Death is common here though, you will grow used to it,” Sammuel suddenly said. The interruption broke Madoc out of his quiet reverie. He had been sheltered, he knew that. The orphanage was on a quaint and quiet planet. Agriculture and pastoral people, grain and cows as far as the eye could see. They had been perched on their mountain and had enjoyed the peace. Madoc had been one of the lucky ones who didn’t remember how he lost his parents, many of the others remembered. They grew up in places of turbulence and violence, the slow moving world they had been raised in a balm for their wounds.

Madoc was beginning to understand just how blessed he had been. Within hours of leaving the Empire, he had been, indirectly admittedly, attacked by pirates, survived a crash landing, and was now stranded on a remote planet.

“Is it alway like this out here?”

“No. Well, I don’t think so. It’s definitely more chaotic than the Empire, or any of the other more established political establishments. The Elvish Consortium is a fairly safe place, the Dwarven Stoneholds are well known to be prosperous and peaceful. Shit happens man. Simple as that.”

“You’re taking this very well. You said you had never been off planet before,” Madoc said, the unspoken accusation hanging in the air.

“My planet has the news. And not just that curated content the Empire spews constantly. My home wasn’t very safe either. When I was a kid, most of the ruling elites were killed. My home became a very dangerous place to live.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Shit happens.”

Sammuel fell quiet and Madoc followed suit. They didn’t really know each other and he had no place to be questioning the older man's story. What did he mean though by curated content though? His mind was still foggy, though the effects of the head injury were already fading. He was blessed by his divine origin, even if he couldn’t express said birthright.

It took them nearly five minutes of continuous walking to find one of the emergency hatches. The door was open and yellow light streamed through, people trickling out of the ship in a steady stream. Falling into line, Madoc was able to make out many of the people around him. A wide variety of races with an even wider range of ages. Some of these people would be useful, some wouldn’t, and others would be a drain on their camp. Madoc was determined to be useful. It was his job to be useful, to be a beacon for others to rally to, a great pillar of support that braced his people. The other survivors of the crash weren’t technically his people, but that was semantics.

Stepping free of the dead iron of the crashed ship, Madoc took a deep breath, filling his lungs for the first time with an alien planet's air. It was humid and thick, tasting of life and death, rot and growth. Even with his stunted senses, he could feel aether swirling about, the world was vibrant with power.

Greenery stretched all around him, towering trees whose canopies intermingled into a sky of verdant color. Vines wove through limbs as plants creeped up the base of the gargantuan trees, dark emerald plants covered the fertile soil as far as the eye coudl see. Small fires had broken out and quickly snuffed out under the oppressive humidity, leaving just small patches of scarring along the wake of the ship. Dozens were already moving around the jungle floor, looking at the sights with the casual air of tourists.

“Why isn’t anyone freaking out?” Madoc couldn’t help but ask.

“Most of the survivors are some form of aether cultivators. Those who weren’t died in the crash, unless their species is unusually durable. The people down here are trained and skilled,” Sammuel replied quietly as he started to work his way down the dangling rope ladder to the floor below. Madoc waited his turn, just breathing in the fresh air and enjoying the sights of the majestic world spread out before him.

Working his way down the ladder with one hand was a struggle, but he managed to do it without dropping his case. The sword would have been fine being dropped, aether forged divine steel was sturdy, but he wouldn’t disrespect his weapons like that. Instead, he almost slipped and fell a half dozen times as the rope ladder twisted, the plastic handles slick under his perspiring hands. At last though, he made it to the surface, the ground soft under his boots. Aether was welling all around him, a veritable see of lifeforce, a paradise lost to the annals of time.

“Captain! Captain! We’ve lost contact with the scouts!” a voice cried out over the gentle murmuring of the crowds.