Game Changer: Day 1

Word Count: 6,018

Summary of Events:

Hawk was woken up by a notification from the General Secretary of the Emim ordering him to a meeting immediately; at the meeting he and all of the other officers of the Emim were informed that some strange ships had emerged from Deep Space and settled into orbit around Maarath, annihilating all other ships which had orbited around the planet. Hawk and a party of young soldiers were sent to gather information and because the other pilots didn't take the incident seriously, Hawk ended up being the only person to get any information and get safely headed back to the Emim space colony orbiting Tamah . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Once Hawk had gotten a day beyond Maarath and her Deep Space orbiters, he’d allowed himself to engage the autopilot and taken the time to use his holographic communication and computing screen — more commonly referred to as a holo-screen — to look up the insignia he’d photographed.

To his surprise he’d found that the insignia was that of the Sons of Chesil, a faction that had arisen several hundred years before and, with only half the population of the Emim — or the Sallu, for that matter, as their populations were similar — had made a bid for the control of Tamah, only to be routed and sent off to Deep Space.

It had been presumed — seeing how no manned craft had ever made it through the Inner Band alive — that the Sons of Chesil had either been smashed up in the Inner Band, or, had they gotten beyond it, like many an exploratory probe, they’d run out of fuel or some other vital supplies and had died.

If this was the Sons of Chesil, then it appeared that these people who hadn’t been seen in three centuries — which was when they’d fled in defeat — had returned somehow.

With no one to talk to because he was the sole survivor, Hawk was left to contemplate just why they would’ve returned from Deep Space, and the conclusion which he’d reached was that there were no other habitable planets beyond the Inner Band.

Everyone knew — in part thanks to the probes — that there were planets beyond the Inner Band; planets that were gigantic and could hold everyone in the system multiple times over.

Unfortunately, the probes had identified all of these planets as not unlike Agag: they had thick atmospheres of toxic gasses, if they weren’t somehow entirely comprised of toxic gasses and thus had no solid mass upon which settlements could be made.

If there were any more planets beyond the Inner Band than had yet been discovered — and Hawk knew for a fact of only two, maybe three planets beyond the Inner Band, although some probes had photographed an outer band, thus why the Inner Band was called as it was — then it was altogether possible that the Sons of Chesil had done so, and had found none safe and good for human habitation.

Now whether the Sons of Chesil had made it to other solar systems or galaxies it couldn’t be said; travelling through space took a decently long time, as proven by the fact that it took multiple days to travel between Tamah and Maarath.

Regardless of how far they had gone, the fact that they had returned — to Hawk — proved that there was nowhere else. Somehow there was just Tamah that could support human life, and yet the population of total people in the whole system was too much, the density of the people was unsustainable, the planet couldn’t support them all.

Pronunciations:

Chesil: chehseel

Sallu: sahloo

Note: the Sons of Chesil is the Emim name for the Sons of Nahash, and Sallu is the Emim name for the Ozem.