Babel (a space opera horror short)

By Paul Melhuish

BABEL

For centuries the Skyfirean colonists have raped the planet of Babel and sold its trusting inhabitants as slaves. So with the planet's rightful owners coming home, the colonists cast around desperately for allies. But an alliance with the servants of the Destroyer is never going to end well...

Greyhart Press brings you Skyfirean cynicism combined with glimpses of hell in a space opera horror short story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greyhart Press
• Release date: Jul 20, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465769046

Paul Melhuish

Paul's publishing history includes a short story in Dark Horizons, (The British Fantasy Society’s fiction magazine) about a farm that bred humans for meat. More recently a story of his was featured in issue 13 of Murky Depths magazine. This joyful piece was a satire on euthanasia entitled Do Not Resuscitate. In October 2010 one of his stories was included in the anthology Shoes, Ships and Cadavers: Tales from Northlondonshire. Edited by Ian Whates and Ian Watson with an introduction by Alan Moore.

Book preview

Babel

Paul Melhuish

Copyright Paul Melhuish 2011

Published by Greyhart Press at Smashwords

Cover image copyright 2011 Angela Harburn. Used under license from Shutterstock.com

Edited by Tim C. Taylor

www.greyhartpress.com

Location: Babel, Lower Atmosphere above Northern Continent.

Temporal scale: Human Occupation Era, Cycle 0.

The Solar Wind achieved planet fall while the world’s red sun was still high behind them. The sleek ship’s wings extended as gravitational force took over and the craft soared the thermals like a mighty bird coming into land. The scarlet soil and rock of the planet’s surface became almost too much to look at, but as the craft passed over a small lake the crew screened out the intense color to marvel at the fantastic architecture of the ancient city. A city the scanners reported to be devoid of any sentient animal or humanoid life. Only over the planet’s seas was life detectable: simple, drifting plant analogs excreting oxygen to the atmosphere.

The ship emerged from a huge rose-tinged cloud to glide over the largest of the planet’s six continents. Banking above a huge palace of red stone, the Solar Wind reached touchdown between two large pillars fronting an immense gaping dark entrance to a cathedral-like structure.

The scilitos, whose role it was to handle the scientific aspects of the exploration, took an atmospheric reading and calculated that the crew’s phys-tech would need to expand the alveoli of the lungs to accommodate the slightly thinner oxygen levels of the world. This should take half a stretch to achieve and then the exploratory team could begin a survey of the planet.

‘Look at the architecture,’ cried Fen who marveled at the sight before him as he gazed out from the viewing port. ‘It’s like these buildings have been left intact to gather dust for thousands of cycles. I wonder why the people who built them deserted this planet.’

‘Perhaps they died out. I know this much.’ Vance slouched in his chair, drinking a snakki. ‘He who leaves it, loses it. We found it, we keep it.’

Location: Babel

Temporal Scale: Human Occupation Era, Cycle 208

The Jeremiah disembarked from the Ark seconds before the larger ship slipped back into hyperspace. The four Agathon missionaries were not dressed in the usual formal white robes of their planet but had adorned themselves in the silks and skyweb of the world they intended to visit. The crew didn’t