Healer
Alwen had been called up to the bridge again. She stepped in and placed a fist behind her back and raised her left hand to her brow. “Doctor Alwen Djani, permission to enter”
“Granted” came the captains terse reply.
Alwen walked in and saw that the view outside was dark and murky, and after a second for her eyes adjust she realized that they were under water. That explained the subtle impact and strange groaning sounds. On the forward window Alwen saw several dark camera feeds that were a blur with movement.
“I’m here captain, how can I help?” she asked.
The captain broke her gaze from the feed to glance at her briefly. “We encountered something unusual. I need to say something in Torweni” she said before turning back to the feed. “I need you to say, ‘don’t panic, everything will be fine’, can you do that?”
“Yes” she answered, not understanding what the captain wanted.
“Good, patch us through” she said, and after a second she gave Alwen a subtle nod.
“Don’t panic, everything will be fine” she said, using the melodic and airy words of her people for the first time two months.
Static crackled through the bridge “Who…are you?” a timid male voice responded in turn. Something about one screen that wasn’t moving drew her attention, she looked into the feed and realized that it had a Torweni man in it. skinny, dirty, and fatigued, but definitely a man of her people. And from the broken horns on his forehead he was from the frozen southern continent of Bikail.
The captain gave a hand signal and the static clicked off “This is feed from the facility’s slave quarters; we found our missing crew and these people. I had only intended to bring the Terrans with us and leave the rest to be rescued, but now we have to bring them with us. I need you to calm them down and convince them we’re friendly. Do not tell them about the nature of this ship’s business, but tell them whatever else they need to hear.
Alwen gulped, this had been unexpected, and she felt like a vise was gripping her heart. “Alright” she said hoarsely. The captain made a hand gesture and the static returned. Alwen steeled herself and used her calm doctors voice “I am a healer of Ashendra, Alwen Djani. Health to your Heart.”
She heard a sad laugh crackle across the speaker “Fejiu knows we need it.”
Fejiu was the god of the seas, he and his lover Kebba watched over sailors and sent storms to punish the wicked and temper the skills of their faithful. “Tell me how you got here”
“We were out fishing; it was night when a beam of light began pulling my crew up into the air and into the hold of a spaceship. They brought us here and made us work, they put shock collars on us to keep us in line. They all looked so beastly and terrifying, like the sea spirits of old who would abduct sailors. I think they might be the origin of those stories.”
She blinked in confusion “How long have you been here?”
“Uhh, I don’t know. The years here aren’t the same. I was 25 when they took us, and now I feel very old. There’s constant pain in my knees now.”
“Might be from the lower gravity, who was chancellor when they took you?”
“Abrook”
She gave the captain a hand signal and the feed cut out. “They’ve been here nearly fifteen years. Before first contact”
She blinked in surprise “Do they know who took them?”
“They said they looked like the sea spirits of old. There’s an old legend of people who came to the southern islands in a hail of fire and terrorized the frozen southern seas until they were eradicated nearly seven hundred years ago. They were described as grey and lizard like, and had mythically fast ships and powerful magic that could kill from far away.”
The captain pondered for a moment “Sounds like your people made first contact sooner than we thought. Those sound like Voidlings, the Kruhur. They’re pretty much pirates with no real home world, or at least not anymore, just a bunch barbarians really. Are there any stories of people who go missing mysteriously?”
“Um yes, stories like that are common in the southern islands. Ships will disappear and wreckage will find its way to shore, we assumed storms were getting them.”
“Like the Bermuda triangle. Kruhur usually take people to be slaves on their deep space stations, did they encounter other aliens?”
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Someone took the captains signal and static crackled again “I’m sorry, we were discussing what might have happened to you. Did the sea spirits meet with any other aliens before you got here?”
“Yes, huge gray spikey ones”
She turned back to the captain, “He said gray spikey ones”
“Gaw” she growled.
“What was that. You’re talking like them” The man shouted, panic filled his eyes.
“Please don’t be afraid, that was galactic common. Its what all aliens speak, a lot has changed back home, but you don’t need to be afraid of these aliens.” She said trying to calm him down.
His panic calmed down “will, will you take us home?”
“Yes, as soon as its safe my friends will bring you to our spaceship, I can help you then. But you need to cooperate with them”
Tears came out of his eyes, and a man to his side put an arm around his shoulder and comforted him. The feed cut out.
“I hope those were tears of joy Bones” the captain said jokingly.
Alwen’s composure frayed a bit “Yes, I said we would help them. Um, we may need to lower ship gravity for them, they’ve been on that planet for a while and look very weak”
“Yes, would you mind informing Bachir that he is going to need to prep grav-pills for these people.”
“We have those?”
“Yes, sometimes station gravity plays hell on us, so we keep a large store here on board. They improve the bone density and muscle growth under higher gravity. It may take a few weeks for them to recover. I’m sure you have a lot more to prepare for now, tell Bachir that we will be converting cargo bay six into an emergency clinic. He can recruit some ‘apes to assist with moving equipment.” The captain said, focus now shifting to a screen were bright flashes of gun fire indicated combat.
“I will, and captain. Thank you. You didn’t have to help them, so I really appreciate this” she said before leaving the bridge.
~~~*~~~
Bones had done an excellent job at calming the prisoners, it would have been a nightmare to move them forcibly if they became panicked. And once aboard her ship they might never have calmed down.
Bones was wrong on one front though; Aster had needed to help them. She was a pirate not a monster, she wasn’t sure she could have slept knowing that she left these people behind to fend for themselves.
The other non-Deathworlder slaves would be fine, the Union had procedures in place for this sort of thing. But Torwen was not a Union world, and without a proper check box on a form to fill out the Union would have left them behind.
Not to mention Captain Modius wouldn’t have been happy if she left them behind. Speaking of which “Karega, send a message out to the Asmodeus, tell them to meet us at point Bravo-Alpha-Alpha” she said using the discreet identifying code of one of 78 meet up points in Orion.
~~~*~~~
Alwen and Bachir directed four ‘apes about as they moved a lot of equipment into a nearby cargo bay on the ship exterior. And spent an hour or so turning it into an impromptu field hospital.
When the slightly oranger sun began to rise over this world the Astaroth surfaced and Alwen and Bachir awaited for the arrival of the prisoners on deck. Alwen knew she should have marveled at the fact she was on an alien world, one of the first of her people to do so willingly. But looking around at the endless water she couldn’t really tell. The water was just a little bluer, maybe, and the air was definitely thinner than she was used to. But that was it. Maybe visiting the ocean of other worlds didn’t count as visiting a different planet.
Soon she saw the silvery shape of a ship coasting lowly over the water, kicking up spray in its wake. A ship that looked like a cross between a stunted bird and the rolled-up husk of an insect. It arrived within a minute after she first saw it and hovered at the Astaroth’s left side, a hatch opened, and two marines jumped down and extended a hand backwards for the gaunt broken looking Torweni fishermen.
The man she had spoken with dropped onto the deck and nearly fell over, the marine caught him and stood him up. But he stilled shook on uncertain legs. “I spent my life on boats, but now I have lost my sea legs”
“They will return, likely though you will have to wait until you return to Torwen. We’re only going to stay here for a little longer.” She called to the man, flashing him with her brightest smile.
He stared at her longingly, almost hungrily, and Alwen realized that there were no woman among these fisher man, she felt a twinge of fear. But the fisherman shook himself out of his stupor “Are you sure this is a spaceship?” He said, now examining the deck around him “This ship almost looks like Fejiu’s fist from the sun gods war.”
She chuckled “These Terrans are strange people, best I can tell is that they feel most comfortable with ships that can soar through the void and then land on water planet side. Maybe our own ships will look similar since most of our history is tied to the oceans.”
“So this isn’t a Torweni ship?” he asked as marines slowly helped the other people off the hovering plane, its engines hardly making a sound.
“No, my best guess is that you were taken fifteen years ago, Torwen made its first diplomatic contact nine years ago. We were offered visas to explore the galaxy, and I joined this ship to learn their medicine. This is my college and mentor, Doctor Bachir” She said with a gesture to her respectfully quiet companion. “He doesn’t speak our language, but he is an exceptional physician”
He chuckled to himself “An alien doctor, huh.”
“Doctor Djani, could you translate for me?” Doctor Bachir asked.
“Of course.”
“We have constructed an emergency hospital in one of the cargo bays below deck, we will care for you until another ship better equipped for long term recovery meets up with us. That ship will be able to take you home” he explained, the fisherman looked entranced by the strange movements of Bachir’s face. It seemed a little strange to Alwen, he did technically spend the last 15 years among aliens. But then again even she was constantly amazed by the range of movement and vocalization the ‘Uplifted’ possessed.
They followed her down below decks into the makeshift hospital, everyone marveled at the ship around them “Its so large” one muttered.
“Long haul journeys are very taxing; the extra breathing room helps with that mentally.” Alwen explained, she wasn’t sure if the ships design quirks were a part of the secrecy clause in her contract, so she simply used the easiest explanation.
They settled all the refugees, she was pretty sure that was the best term for them now, and began to perform cursory checkups on everyone. She also made a point of learning all their names. As she and Bachir worked their way through the group, the scarred and terrified people began to relax around Bachir’s gentle ministrations. And even broke out some very broken common that they had learned. She asked the lead fishermen, Gehno, about why they hadn’t used it with the marines.
“We, no talk it good…we no know what maareens talk, it fast” he answered in broken barely identifiable common before he switched back into Torweni “by the time we figured out what they were saying you had already said hello. To be honest, we thought those scarry ‘maareens’ were there to eat us or something. The slavers all seemed very terrified, they kept jabbering about Terrans. I guess it must be a code word for slave hunters or something.”
“Its actually just the name of their species, though I get the impression that they really don’t like slavers either.”
“But the ‘maareen’ who saved us had white fur, and Bachir is obviously a different species?” He asked bewildered.
“It’s a big galaxy, the Terran’s homeworld gave birth to many species” She explained, dancing around the uncomfortable topic of genetic uplifting. She moved past the topic “It’s a dangerous one too, those slavers kidnapped crew from one of the captains trade ships. That’s the real reason we came here.”
“You didn’t come for us?”
“Lady Ashendra works in many ways, maybe she sent these Terrans as salvation.”
He looked thoughtful “That would explain your presence then, there must be millions of spaceships out there. But the lady sent a ship with one of her faithful to aid us. Many blessing to you healer.” Gehno said before he went to check in with his companions. Leaving Alwen in a stupor.
Did the lady guide her here? She was determined to travel the stars for her own reasons. But to end up with a crew and ship who just happened to rescue a bunch of lost sailors in need of the ladies light. To mistakenly join a crew of pirates only to end up doing the lady’s work seemed a little more than coincidence. It almost seemed like providence.
She pulled out her personal medical journal and wrote a new entry, Divine mandate?