Chapters 1 & 2 of Pillars of Harlock

Note:  I did a minor rewrite on Chapter 1 so I'm reposting it here.  If you already read that, Chapter 2 is halfway down.  

1: The Dunes

Planet Iria - Cycle 4944

Orvo punched a gloved finger into several buttons without a response.  The power supply on his ship went out just as he passed through Iria’s atmosphere.

At his current speed, he’d explode on impact.

His body pushed forward, feeling exponentially heavier due to the pressure.  Now that he was through the worst of the heat, Orvo labored to lift his hand, but managed to grab the mechanical emergency lever and pulled.

The kevlar parachutes popped out of the back, slowing the single pilot G57-Tulip down.  The interior burned with heat as the ship was engulfed in white-hot flame.  He could feel pieces of the exterior ripping or melting off.

His lungs struggled through the pressure, but he managed to breathe, fogging up the visor of his helmet.

Just what I need.  A broken suit, Orvo thought and ripped it off his head with a herculean effort.  He needed full vision right now.  Just get close enough to the pillar.  His prized box, tucked into his suit, pressed against his chest.

A jolt that made Orvo’s insides rise told him that the back half of the Tulip had ripped off, taking the parachutes with it.  He braced for impact as the sand dunes drew closer and closer.

I was so close.

The angle the remainder of his ship traveled was perfect for landing, but his human body might not be strong enough to handle impact.  He pressed the flotation button on his suit, puffing it with air.

I might make it.

The ship grazed the first sand dune, skipping like a flat rock on a still lake.  It skipped again, and again.  Each time pressing the box harder against Orvo’s chest.

A wave of sand was the last thing Orvo saw before everything went still.  Miraculously, he never lost consciousness.

When the ship finally came to a rough stop, the sand slid off of the window of his Tulip, revealing a scene of the dunes and Harlock’s Pillar in the distance. Despite the place being 127 degrees and completely devoid of water, it was still somehow the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

At least I stuck the landing without crushing the cockpit.

Small victories.

The entire planet was a barren wasteland, except for one thing.  The final link of Harlock’s Necklace.

If his map was correct, the last link was near, and once he got it, he wouldn’t need food, water, or the shift to survive. No. Orvo would become an immortal.

He chuckled as he thought back to everyone calling him a crackpot for hunting the necklace. Well, everyone but Dailo.

— — —

Planet Salago - Cycle 4932

“Young Orvo, please tell me that you don’t believe in that bollocks.  Harlock’s Necklace is a myth,” a rotund man in his late 50s guffawed, nursing a ceramic glass of ale at a tavern table, surrounded by his crew.

“It’s real Dailo.  I have proof,” Orvo said.  His blue eyes shone in the light, contrasted by his dark brown hair.

Dailo and his crew laughed, “Please, show me this proof you think you have.”

Orvo bit his lip.  He didn’t need to prove anything to Dailo, but the excitement of finding the first link was too much to hold in.  He fished a small box, normally used for expensive jewelry, out of his coat pocket.

“Going to propose to ‘ol Dailo, lad?” one of the men jeered.

Orvo shot him a stern look then shrugged him off.  He then looked each of Dailo’s men in the eye, or at least tried to.  Some of them feigned disinterest.  Others watched the box like a spider, ready to pounce when its prey fell into their web.  Slowly, he put the box back into his coat.  The men stopped jeering and frowned at Orvo.

Dailo held up a hand, signaling his men to relax. Only Dailo hadn’t been watching the box.  He’d been watching Orvo. “Good lad,” he whispered.

Orvo’s nerves surged with tension.  “Dailo, you didn’t have to call my bluff in front of all your men.  Let me tell a tale once in a while, yeah?”’

Dailo’s eyes twinkled, “Forgive an old man.  I shouldn’t have ruined a perfectly good tale.”

His men laughed, but some of their eyes still lingered on the spot Orvo had tucked the box.

Looking around, Dailo suddenly stood up and kicked the chair of one of his crew. “What do you lot think you’re doing?  Get the ship ready, we set out in an hour,” he barked.  Without question, his crew packed up or slapped money on the table for their drinks and made for their ship in militant efficiency.  Dailo was the only man who stayed behind.

The magic of the jade link hummed within the box, buzzing against Orvo’s chest.  His anxiety of the crew wilted away.  Real magic hadn’t existed in thousands of years, but here it was.

Dailo must have felt it too.  “What do you want for it?” he asked, nodding at Orvo’s chest.

“Not for sale,” Orvo said and readied himself to flee.

Dailo grinned.  “I trust that you’ll take better care of that now?  Don’t show it to anyone,” he said in a more fatherly tone.

Ovo nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“That’s just the first link.  You’ll never find them all.  Better to sell it quickly,” Dailo continued.

This time, Orvo smiled and shook his head.  “Maybe, maybe not.  But that’s not why we’re in this business.  You know that.  If I fall short, I can sell it for a pretty penny to the next Hunter.”

“True enough,” Dailo said, stroking his large chin.  He pulled out a piece of paper from his coat and carefully slid it to Orvo.  “Look me up if you change your mind and decide to sell early.”

Orvo unfolded the piece of paper and skimmed over it. “This is a travel pass signed by the Grand Admiral himself,” he said in disbelief.

“Aye, keep your voice down,” Dailo said, crossing his arms.

“You’ll be the first person I come to,” Orvo said, pocketing the paper.

— — —

Planet Iria - Cycle 4944

Orvo now held a slightly larger box containing 99 links of various metals, stone, wood, and bone.  Also enclosed was his precious map – not that he needed it.  Every detail was burned into his memory from poring over it obsessively this last year.  Most of his money had gone to upgrading the box over time, ensuring that no harm would come to the contents inside. Satisfied that the box had been undamaged, he zipped it back into his suit.  Always keep it close to the chest.

The last link was on Iria, but the element it was made of was a mystery.  Still, it was here.  He was here.  Once he completed the chain – immortality and Harlock’s power were his. The tall tale every Treasure Hunter heard as a child would become his reality.

The air inside his small ship was already hot, but he dreaded opening the hatch, exposing himself to the viscous heat of Iria’s sun.  Orvo delayed that by snapping his safety belts off and taking stock of his small ship.

Everything was destroyed.  His food, water, even his emergency supplies had been blasted away during the landing.

In this heat, without water, he had a maximum of three days to find his treasure.

Overall, he was in good shape despite nursing severely sore muscles.  Orvo sent a mental thanks to the gods that he hadn’t suffered any broken bones or brain trauma.

Most people would be in a panic right about now, but Orvo had made it to the last leg of his journey.  Something that even he thought impossible all those years ago, showing off the jade link to Dailo and his men.  If he died here, he would still be a legend among Treasure Hunters.

Dailo better be keeping them off my trail, he thought.

Orvo was the name on every Treasure Hunter’s lips before he snuck off for Iria.  The man who gathered 99 links of Harlock’s Necklace.  Death would only mean that his name lived on in immortality as future Treasure Hunters searched for his remains and the treasure he now carried. So it was critical that everyone searching for him wouldn’t find him.

Among the wreckage, Orvo managed to find his fully charged Skarn Pistol – good enough to blast a hole through his ship exactly 100 times over before running out of ammo

Staying and repairing the ship was out of the question.  It would take him months, and that was if he could find the proper materials, which he doubted.  Nobody had been to Iria in over a thousand years to his knowledge. The only material he had read was by a science team that documented the desolate planet.  At first glance, it appeared nothing had changed since Cycle 2314

“I’ll be back, Tulip,” Orvo announced.  The pillar looked to only be a few hours hike away.  Another blessing that he hadn’t been thrown too far off course.

With some urgency, Orvo began snapping open the exit hatch.  He was immediately greeted with a wave of hot air and sand.  The sand stuck to his face, embedding itself into his skin.  He didn’t care.  His excitement to find the link boiled over.

He stopped himself from running out into the sand in his excitement and with a sigh, he grabbed his helmet and stuffed it in his pack.  If the sand became too bothersome, he’d use it to shield his face.

Without even consulting the map, Orvo headed “East” as far as this planet was concerned.  He knew the direction he needed to go.

At his walking pace, he didn’t know the exact distance he’d be able to travel in a day, but he estimated around 20 miles.  Perhaps less as the sand was soft and rolled in small, ever-shifting hills.

Orvo briefly wondered what may lurk within these dunes, resting a hand on his pistol.

Nothing could survive here, he assured himself.

Only two hours later, Orvo’s mouth was dry and caked with sand.  Not too much further, he thought.

Movement to his right startled him out of his thoughts.  He snapped his eyes in the direction but didn’t see anything.

Just the wind, most likely.

More movement.  Just beneath the surface of the sand – closer.

Not good.

Orvo grabbed his pistol and aimed at the spot.  Another wiggle, but slightly to the left.  He fired – a billow of sand sprayed into the air.

Movement to the right, even closer.  Another shot.

The movement beneath the sand vanished.  Orvo hoped that he hit whatever it was, or at the very least, scared it off.  At the risk of drumming up more of the beasts, Orvo took off at a light jog toward the pillar – hoping to put some distance between himself and the creature.

A couple of sand beasts can’t stop me.  Perhaps it was just my imagination.  I’ve heard that the desert plays tricks on one’s mind.

An hour had passed and there hadn’t been any more movement in the sand.  Content that he had either killed or scared the beast away, Orvo slowed to a walk.  He’d be at the pillar in just another mile or two.

Dehydration had already set into Orvo as a headache came on.  Chancing a look back, he groaned.  Dozens of lumps in the sand scurried about, traveling in his direction.

Grinding the sand between his teeth, Orvo pulled out the Skarn and fired three shots at the lumps before turning and running once again.

Behind him, he could hear sprays of sand and an occasional shriek akin to a bat.  Orvo willed his legs to pump faster despite the soft surface of the dunes.  The sand worked against him, almost pulling him down.  With each step the noises got closer until he was nearly upon the pillar.

Finally, he reached it and whirled around with his pistol ready.  The lumps were zipping around beneath the sand in a frenzy.

Only, they were ten meters away.  They circled around the pillar, never coming closer than that.

Are they scared of it?  Orvo eyed the lumps for ten minutes as he caught his breath.  Not once did they approach him.  Their movement began to slow and the shapes dispersed.

Not wanting to question his good fortune any longer, he turned back toward the pillar and slapped his hands on it, “I did it.  Twelve Cycles later I’ve goddamn done it,” he cheered in a hoarse voice.

What now? He wondered.  The pillar was plain as could be.  A smooth stone that reached a hundred feet in the air.  Orvo walked around the pillar a dozen times, looking for any sign.

Perhaps the link is under the pillar?  Orvo hated treasure hunts that ended in large-scale excavation but started digging with his hands anyway.  It didn’t take long for him to run into solid caliche.  This wasn’t something to celebrate.  If the link was below a layer of caliche, he’d never retrieve it.  Heavy machinery would be required to dig through it.

“Come on, Harlock.  Give me a sign here.  What the hell am I supposed to do?”  Orvo whispered at the pillar.  Sweat beaded down his forehead and he leaned it against the stone pillar in thought.

The moment his wet skin touched the stone, the pillar greedily drank in his sweat and Orvo heard a grinding sound.  A “drawer”, for lack of a better word, pushed out of the pillar, just to his left.

2: Drink the Water

Holding his breath, Orvo peered inside the stone drawer.  Within it was a piece of parchment, the size of his palm, a small bag, and a blue vial.

Using his teeth, he ripped off his gloves. It may have been more cautionary to keep them on, but Orvo was more confident in the items not slipping or tearing the paper with his bare hands.  Orvo lifted the paper and read the handwritten words scrawled across it.  Butterflies flitted around his stomach as he recognized the great wizard’s handwriting.

To find the final link, follow these instructions:

1: Drink the water

2:

“Where’s the rest?” Orvo complained, eliminating the butterflies.

The second item on the list was blank.  Had Harlock played a cruel trick?  Orvo had done plenty of hunts that forced him to go from one place to the next.  But, “drink the water”?  That’s no riddle.

Before letting himself get frustrated, he picked up the blue vial.  It was ice cold to the touch, making Orvo nearly drop it.  His body had been overly hot since the crash landing and the sudden shift in extreme temperature startled him.

It could potentially be poisonous. Some of the other links had various protections in place, including poison darts and other nasty surprises.  Before taking a sip from this frigid vial, he’d explore the rest of the drawer.

He traded the instruction sheet and vial for the small bag inside.  Gently prodding the outside, he could tell that the contents were various shapes and sizes, but all of them were small.

Had the contents been crushed? He asked himself.

The bag was plain with no discernable marks on it.  No letters or warnings of danger.  Orvo took a large breath and held it before unfastening it.  The last thing he wanted was to open the bag and inhale some sort of deadly spore.

Opening it away from him, he waited a moment to ensure nothing puffed out of it.  Nothing did, so he looked inside.  Orvo was no botanist, but they appeared to be seeds as far as he could tell.  He recognized a few as citrus seeds, unsure of whether they were orange or lemon, or even something that he’d never heard of before.

“Okay, everything seems safe, if not confusing,” Orvo mumbled.  “Everything except for the water.”

Although magic was dead as far as everyone else was concerned, Orvo had witnessed the contrary.  The very links in his necklace chain hummed with it.  Not that he could do anything with the magic yet, but it was there.  He had only shown it to a few people in his life, but it was a delight to see the spark ignite in their eyes when they saw it.  They began to believe in magic, just as he did.

He put the bag of seeds back in the drawer and stared at the paper with Harlock’s taunting words once more.  “Did the old bastard know that whoever found this place would be dying of dehydration?”

On the one hand, he wanted nothing more than to blindly follow Harlock’s instructions and down the cold liquid within the vial, potentially quenching his thirst for a moment.  On the other hand, no Treasure Hunter worth their salt would consume anything until they were absolutely sure it was safe.

Orvo sighed and sat down in the shade of the pillar.  The hot sand burned his ass through the suffocating suit.

Now that his adrenaline had died down, and he had opened the drawer, Orvo decided to take a minute to really take in his surroundings.  Perhaps the answer for what he should do was out there.  A sign of some sort.

There were nothing but sand dunes.  Even the little lumps had scurried away to wherever they had come from.  Orvo wasn’t sure if it was from heat stroke or inspiration, but goosebumps erupted over his arms.  If there were living creatures here, that must mean water was here.  Although the information was dated, everything he had read indicated that no water existed on this planet.

Orvo recalled theories of life surviving on planets without water.  The theories indicated that there were “alternatives” to water, but he didn’t think those rules would apply here.  There was breathable oxygen, the gravity was even 9.8 meters per second squared – an important metric for humans looking to inhabit a new planet.  It had almost everything humans needed—  except for water and food. Well, the kind that didn’t hunt him, anyway.

Hopefully, he’d need neither once he had completed the necklace. What immortal would need them anyway?

Still, Orvo couldn’t deny that the longer he went without water, the worse his cognitive abilities would become.  The small vial wouldn’t help him for long either.  Perhaps Harlock wished him to find a water source?  If the little terror mounds had one, it would assuredly be underground.

Orvo groaned, put his gloves back on, and began digging a hole in the hot sand. The soft surface made the process quite a bit easier than he had anticipated.  Within an hour, he had dug a hole deep enough for him to sit in with his head poking out.  He had to admit, the hole made it a smidge cooler.  If he kept going, it wouldn’t be the worst place to rest.  Hopefully, it would protect him from the sand that liberally stung his face in the wind.

Despite the silver lining, there was still no sign of moisture.  Just soft, lifeless dirt.  He still hadn’t even reached any sort of caliche or packed dirt.  Iria was truly an ocean of sand.  Orvo’s mouth mirrored the world.  It was full of bits of sand and as dry as the earth beneath him.

“Alright, Harlock.  You win.  I’ll drink that damn water.”

Orvo climbed out of the hole, ripping his gloves off once more.  This time, he savored the cool touch of the vial.  He slowly twisted the top, careful not to break it and was surprised to find that connected to the top was a dropper.

“Even less water than advertised.  Fantastic.”

He knew that if it came with a dropper, he’d better use it.  The problem was that the top didn’t have an area to squeeze.  Rather than whine about it, Orvo simply lifted the dropper to hover over his tongue while he leaned his head back.

A single drop of water clung to the end, refusing to fall.

Come on. Come to daddy, Orvo willed.  He didn’t dare to close his mouth in case the water fell the moment he did.  Giving the dropper a gentle wiggle, the single drop of water finally released its grip.

Rather than falling into Orvo’s mouth, the drop flung directly into his eye.

His eye became an ocean.  A cold ocean.  The drop multiplied in size, growing and growing, filling his eye with water.  None of it fell down his face or to the ground.  It just pushed further in.  Orvo hastily put the top back on the vial and shoved it in the drawer.

The cold water seemed to freeze his entire orbital socket, bringing him to his knees.  He gritted his teeth and clapped a hand over it, contemplating whether or not to rip his own eye out.  Whatever this was, it wasn’t normal and hurt worse than the time one of his flings stabbed him in the nipple when she found out he was leaving her planet.

A mounting pressure forced him to cry out and begin to claw at his eye.  The expanding water pushed through the back of his head and into his brain, freezing that as well.  His body gave out as he collapsed into the sand, shouting at him that he was going to freeze to death on this hot planet.

The water began to course through his veins.  Or was it ice?  Orvo didn’t know anymore.  All he could do was lay in the sand, shivering — hoping that it would end soon.

Orvo lost track of time as the sensation seemed never ending.  Make it stop, he whimpered mentally.  He dreamed of drinking a whiskey infused with Gailon Peppers.  Dailo had dared him to do it once, and it made his blood boil.  He’d give anything to feel that again.

As he dreamed, his blood and body warmed. Within moments, the heat became too much.  Movement returned to his limbs.

Intuitively, he forced his thoughts to a boring day indoors where the temperature was optimal for his human body.  His blood cooled again, but in a pleasant way.

“Gods, what’s happening to me?”

Iria’s hot sun still beat down on his skin, but his mouth felt hydrated.  His skin had stopped sweating.  In fact, Orvo couldn’t remember another time he felt so refreshed.

He couldn’t help it.  He flopped into the sand and started to laugh.  This was magic.  The sand attempted to burn him, but he forced his body to go cold until the sand beneath him cooled.  Just as quickly, he returned his body temperature to a comfortable level.  He laughed some more, soaking in the sensation.

“Teach me, Harlock!” Orvo screamed into the empty Irian sky, wondering if he would ever comprehend the magic now within him.

Orvo jumped back up, invigorated.  Returning to the drawer, he grabbed the piece of paper.

To find the final link, follow these instructions:

1: Drink the water

2: Fill the cup

3:

The second line had filled in before his eyes, as if Harlock’s spirit had been there writing it in real time.  A third instruction also appeared – blank.  The familiar sound of grinding stone forced Orvo’s eyes to his left yet again.  Another drawer had opened.

Giddy with excitement and no longer sweltering hot or dehydrated, Orvo peered inside.  The drawer was shorter in width, but taller than the first.  Within was a ceramic cup, as plain as the world around him.  But Orvo knew that nothing about this place was plain.

Now he knew what to do.  He’d need to fill the cup with his newfound power.  Still, he gently lifted the ceramic object and inspected it thoroughly.  A Treasure Hunter never knew when a trap might spring, after all.  It didn’t take long to see that there was nothing exciting about the cup.  It was just a device for him to practice on.

Okay, fill the cup.

Orvo narrowed his eyes and stared, imagining water filling it to the brim.  Nothing happened.

He tried to imagine a facet filling up a previous glass he’d used.  Nothing happened.

This time, he pointed his finger and imagined a jet of water shooting out into the cup.  Nothing happened.

Maybe it was more simple and he’d just have to spit in it until it was full.  He was hydrated now anyway.

With a shrug, he spat in the cup.  The cup spat back, hitting him between the eyes with a glob of his saliva.  What the hell was that?

“Okay, cup.  You’re thirsty.  Help me out here, how do I get this water from me, to you?”

The cup remained still, unanswering.

Orvo sighed.  His stomach grumbled and he knew he’d have to go hunt one of the sand monsters within the next couple days and pray that they’d be edible.  Which raised another question, forcing Orvo’s heart to the bottom of his stomach.

He couldn’t create fire here.  There wasn’t anything to burn.  He could potentially find something from his ship, but nothing that would burn long enough to cook any meat.  Immortality would have to come before that.

“Okay cup.  Enough screwin’ around.”

Orvo focused on the unending fount of water flowing through him.  He could control his body temperature.  That had to be more impressive than firing it out, right?  He thought about the sensation of taking a leak, but there was nothing.

“You’re lucky.  That would have been bad for you, cup.”

Then he remembered where it all started.  His right eye.  Orvo closed the left and stared at the cup with his right.  He tried to push the water from his body back to where it came from and felt it oblige.  This time, it didn’t hurt — but it wasn’t comfortable, either.

Room temperature water began to spill out of his tear ducts.  Slowly at first, as if he were crying.  Orvo smiled and leaned it over the cup.  This time, the ornery cup didn’t spit it back at him.  The pitter patter of his tears hitting the cup grew faster as he grew more confident in pushing it out.

His tear ducts didn’t even sting as the water began to pour out more freely.  Within moments, the cup was filled.

Orvo tried to stop the liquid and push it back down, but it wouldn’t cooperate.  The water just kept escaping.  The heat of Iria returning to his body.

Panic filled Orvo.  If he didn’t get it to stop leaking out of his eye, he’d lose his newfound power  on the first day.