Camp Sunrise: News Worth the Pain

Posted on 19 Mar 2023 @ 2:16pm by Major Porter Wallace
Edited on on 19 Mar 2023 @ 5:43pm

Mission: M3 - Into the Deep
Location: Korix: The Temple Complex
Timeline: MD08 - Afternoon on the Island
1972 words - 3.9 OF Standard Post Measure

Wallace crawled out of a hatch built into the side of the water pump and held up a metal and plastic piece the size and shape of a snare drum. “Diaphragm again.”

N’to took the proffered part and examined it. Although Wallace had to use both his hands to haul the thing out, N’to easily cradled it in one. “Ruptured seal,” he clicked and whistled. His rebreather, which reminded Wallace of a full-face diving mask, but filled with water, was connected to a banged-up orange canister connected to the Korinn’s waist. The mask muffled some of his tones and whistles, but Wallace always managed to understand.

Upon the Starfleet folks’ imprisonment on Korix, Wallace found nearly all the skills he’d gained in a Marine career virtually useless in a place where any thought of uprising was met with swift and merciless death. His survival skills came in handy in the beginning, but other than that. N’to, one of the enslaved Irix, took the Human under his tutelage and taught him how to repair the machines that powered the mines.

Wallace shoved himself out, stretching his back as he gained his feet. The hatch was big enough to just accommodate the giant Korinn, but would’ve been very unpleasant and dangerous. The Z’ala wouldn’t allow them to shut down the pump, so there were any number of moving parts inside that could blister, skin, or rip off an arm or leg. For the last eight years, the smaller Wallace was the one who clambered around inside the guts of the massive water pump. Shaped like a barbell, but the size of a school bus, it shot highly-pressurized mixture water and chemicals through four green tubes attached to one end. The tubes snaked away for several yards before disappearing down four-meter wide access points that led into the mines.The pressurized water was how the miners cut into the veins filled with kelbonite.

Mining was the deadliest work on the planet and it was a small mercy to Wallace, Ibis, and the kids that the mines were submerged. Because of the breakneck pace of the mining, cave-ins, plasma fires, and all manner of accidents were common. Then there were the chemicals that came screaming out of these nozzles and bathed the miners in poisons that slowly killed them. On average, eleven miners died every day of one thing or another.

“You’d think gods would be able to make something that didn’t break every three days.”

N’to grunted an agreement, or at least that’s how Wallace had come to translate the four low whistles, and threw the diaphragm onto the ground. Everything around the water pump was littered with old parts and broken tools slowly rusting in the humid, wet air. In fact, for a “Temple Complex” the whole place was a wreck. There were a few rusty sheds scattered around the sandy dunes that stretched for three miles to the east and west, meeting water on both sides, Trash was its main aesthetic and the main source of the refuse the crew of the Sunrise used to build their shantytown.

This part of the island had two defining features: the most eye-catching was the extinct volcano that commanded the northern tip of the island. Black like charcoal, with flanks that sharply descended from its peak in a series of seven steps to the sand below. Built on the highest step, nine-hundred feet up, was the so-called Temple. In truth, the red-tiled roofs and pale circular mud-brick buildings was the home of the Pyrryx governor, the god-in-residence. No one went up there, not even the Z’ala Korinn priests who worshiped their alien masters. As far as Wallace knew there was only the one Pyrryx up there. In nine years, he’d seen it maybe three times, each putting down an Irix uprising. Violently.

The other feature was a large smelting plant that rendered the ore into pure kelbonite. Like a massive pier enclosed in a concrete building ribbed with steel girders, it cut into the massive oval bay that formed the northwest corner of the island. The plant spewed black smoke that fell on the water and turned it brown making it difficult to see the true heart of the island: the Irix homes nestled around the mine’s opening.

Hundreds of structures shaped like upside down teacups with saucers on top. Each structure held at least five dozen Irix Korinn, more when they were really crammed inside. This wasn’t unusual, Wallace had learned. Small families were unheard of in Korinn culture. They lived in schools - something Wallace thought of as clans - with everyone living in as few structures as could hold them.

In the middle of all those underwater structures was a dark spot, fifty-feet in diameter: the gaping maw of the main tunnel for the mine. All the mines branched out from that one, some snaking under Wallace’s fit a hundred meters down others crawling out deeper into the ocean. From where he stood, he could count another dozen high-pressure water pump stations, but built on platforms that floated on the water above the city.

“Here,” N’to whistled to Wallace and handed him the spare diaphragm.

Wallace prepared to reenter the pump when movement caught his eye. Two Z’ala Korinn, wearing golden helmets shaped like fish bowls caught the glint of the sun overhead. He would’ve scrambled for the opening, but he knew they were headed toward them. Ignoring them would dishonor them and carried grave consequences, something he’d learned early on.

They waited. Wallace didn’t know how N’to stood the heat and humidity with all that fur. Sweat beaded up on his forehead and ran down his face and back in unending torrents. He glanced at his canteen, but stood fast, waiting for the lumbering Z’ala. Korinn didn’t move particularly fast on dryland; they waddled like oversized penguins. While the Irix who worked on land, like N’to, had adapted to the best their physiology allowed, the Z’ala spent most of their time in the water.

An interminable time later, they finally drew close. Both Wallace and N’to knelt and bowed until their foreheads touched the hot sand. He’d taken note of the silver chains running around their bodies, but they were still a mystery to him. Apparently, the positioning of the chains denoted something of importance, but it was impossible to tell on land. In water, the chains floated and made a shapes. On land the links just hung and drooped in complicated knots. The Z’ala had discovered their usefulness as whips, too, so they kept a couple of loose strands that could be easily gathered as a weapon.

As they bowed, both Wallace and N’to subserviently clicked, whistled, and chuffed, “We honor the Z’ala.”

“The air-sack speaks with such garbled tongue,” Wallace recognized the voice of Lo’opo, a particularly vicious, but thankfully junior overseer.

“He does,” the other sneered. Wallace let out a sigh. It was Pauua.

“It breathes like a deflating sack, Lo’opo kicked at the sand and it rained down on the two laborers. A grave insult to Korinn. To Wallace it was just annoying. “No wonder their work is so slow. Tell us why the High Ones won’t let us kill the remaining air-sacks?”

“They have their uses. Anyway, their lives are so short that to expend the effort of killing them would be more than it is worth. How many of your people are dead, air-sack?”

“Many, Z’ala. We are weak things, Z’ala.,” Wallace responded with one of the few phrases in Korinn he could do almost perfectly. He gritted his teeth in disgust. Only the thought of Ibis and the children kept him from rising up.

“I would punish them for their lethargy in fixing this machine, School Friend,” Pauua said to her companion. “I must speak in its language so that it will understand why I am punishing it. Please, wait over there. I am embarrassed that I know such a foul tongue.”

Lo’opo bowed deeply to Pauua and shuffled far enough away that he wouldn’t dishonor his superior.

“Did you have to make me say that, Pauua?” Wallace growled, face still buried in the sand.

“Yes. He would report otherwise if I was not sufficiently cruel. I may have to beat you some after we speak, but I believe you’ll find it worth the pain,” she responded in Standard, muffled by the dome of water, but with perfect inflections.

Most conversations went this way with Pauua. They’d talk, then she’d beat him. The beatins were almost pantomime as she’d come to learn where and how hard to hit him so that he wouldn’t be more than lightly bruised, but once she’d nearly broken a rib by accident. Ibis had had a fit. “Okay. Let’s chat.”

“This is for both of you. N’to, how is your Federation language?”

N’to struggled at speaking standard, but had no trouble understanding it when spoken to him. Wallace was similar with their language. Instead of saying anything, the Irix Korinn nodded four times, face digging a hole in the sand.

“Good. I was alone in the communication tower this midday. The luck of the tua’tuach was with us. A message came in from a ship in orbit.”

“Great. More Pyrryx. Please tell me that they told the governor to bomb the Z’ala and blow his brains out,” Wallace said dryly. “I’d take a real beating for that to be true.”

“Almost as good. The ship wasn’t Pyrryx. They call themselves the Pathfinder and say they are from the United Federation of Planets. These are your people, yes? These pathfinders? These Federation of Planets?”

Wallace lifted his face off the sand to stare up at Pauua in shock. He almost stood the rest of the way up out of excitement, but any movement ceased abruptly when his vision erupted in stars and his head slammed back down into the sand.

Pauua had brought her foot down on his head as gently as she could, but it still hurt. “Keep your head down, air-sack!,” she yelled so her companion could hear. Quieter to Wallace she added in Standard, “If To’opo sees that I allowed you to look at me, it could ruin everything. Now listen, there is a way off this island into space. I can help you steal a cosmoship.”

“When?”

“Very soon. N’to, I need you to tell the elder crests in the Irix. Now. Now is the time. The free Irix will make contact with a power that can help us free our planet from the scourge. You slaves must rise now. We must finalize the plans, destroy everything of value on this land, and head for open seas.”

N’to gave a quick nod.

“Wallace, you were a warrior, yes? We have plans, but would you look at them? The Irix here are brave, but our greatest warriors are in our histories.”

He didn’t have to think at all. “It would be my pleasure.”

“Then you will return to your mate. Tell her the news,” Pauua said, adding loudly in her native language as she detached a length of silver chain from around her body, “Now I will beat you for your insolence and laziness!”

Even as the whip stung his back, Wallace began to laugh hysterically from joy.