Less Famous Microns

From Soloralwiki

The Adventures of Less Famous Microns

A story of a forgotten race, back from the dead.
By Eoin Dornan

Get’Mol opened his eyes, and would have screamed, except he couldn’t get his vocal chords to work. All around him was darkness. After a little frantic movement, he calmed down. He was Get’Mol Mai’Lor, a general of the Micron Armies. He had joined the rebellion of Tar’Mul against the Triad government, and had waded through the bodies of those he had once called friends. He had followed Sai’Kar and Tar’Mul to the Sun Tower, and had been…entombed, along with them. How many years had he dwelt in machine-induced sleep, in this strange fluid, which kept him alive? One hundred? Two hundred? Either way, his family were probably all dead by now, those who had not been slain at his fellow rebels hands. This was the price a rebel had to pay; sooner or later he’d have to depose people he knew.

There was a noise, a noise like the chime of a keypad, and he felt the fluid drain away, carrying with it the sense of being in a coffin. For he now found he resided in an open-topped box, and, after the brightness of the world outside his long-time residence faded away, he saw a smiling face looking down at him. When the machines that were hooked onto his ears, face and periphery points were taken off, he sat up, and felt all his bones crack at once from long-time idleness. Get’Mol cried out a little, and found he recognised Zom’Pir Ero’Sir, who placed a hand on his naked shoulder. The explorer’s hands were rough, and Get’Mol was sure, even after all this time, that Zom still had some dirt underneath his fingernails. “Come on, old friend, out of that bath, it’s gone a bit cold by now, I think.” Grasping his friend’s hand, Get heaved himself out of the box, wincing as his uncovered feet touched the cold floor of the room where he had spent so long a time. His skin rippled with goosebumps, and he shivered. “Are there some clothes around, Zom?” he asked, shaking a bit. Zom shrugged, “We’ll have to wait for our host, but in the meantime there’s a shower block around the corner.

The explorer led his friend to the shower, and Get spent only a little more than the old regulation seven minutes in there, feeling the warmth return to his body, and getting an odd sticky residue that had stayed on his skin after the ‘bath’ off himself. Afterwards, he found something he recognised. Elderly, with fraying edges, but nevertheless, it was an antihydro sheet. Rubbing it on himself, and watching with the same glee he always had as the excess water lifted off him and onto the sheet, he left it in an equally old receptacle, where the water would collect into a machine, and be recycled into its component atoms. Even the water from a shower could provide lighting for a good-sized town. Fusion had been the door, which let the Microns into the great path of scientific discovery.

Shook from his musings by the sound of voices from the ‘sleeping room’, Get walked back to where he had woken up. He saw Zom’Pir talking to a tall figure; with greenish-yellow hair bound tightly back in an elaborate braid. Get’Mol had a feeling he recognised the man from somewhere, but couldn’t place him. Zom saw his friend’s condition (which was one both of confusion and nakedness) and did two things to alleviate it. First, he waved to a low table near to where Get was standing, where what looked like a loose black shirt and trousers lay. Second, he pointed to Get, and his friend was turned to by the figure that had been talking to Zom. “Get’Mol Mai’Lor, this is Uen’Bae.’ There was an awkward pause, as Get’Mol waited for the regular Micron clan name and honorific which wasn’t forthcoming, and the stranger examined Get’Mol from head to toe. “Welcome back to the world of the living, General,” said Uen’Bae, smiling weakly. Zom’Pir grinned his usual infectious grin, which had won him so many a lecture back in old Ptia College, and nudged Get’Mol on the shoulder, “We’re both very grateful to you, Uen’Bae. Your people have made a great sacrifice so that ours may live.” Get’Mol remembered himself then. This was a Solarian, presumably, though his memories of them before his stasis were fuzzy at best. He bowed, “We are indebted to you indeed, Master Uen’Bae. But one question do I have. How long have we slept for?” Uen’Bae looked a bit sheepish then, scratching the back of his head. “When you were put in stasis, it was the 2nd year after the Great Destruction. It is now the 1,987th year after that great tragedy.” Get’Mol’s knees wobbled then, and even Zom’Pir looked slightly phased. Almost 2000 years!! How much had changed in all the years they had slept? Get’Mol then found himself laughing. “So why didn’t you let us sleep? It’s not as if the world’s any different now then it will be in 3,000 more years, eh?” Zom’Pir snorted, and then left the conversation abruptly, stalking up the rows upon rows of vats which Get hadn’t really noticed before, and reasoned must contain Microns. Uen’Bae looked slightly angry, “You have a task. This should be simple enough to ones such as you.” Get’Mol nodded, feeling happier. As a soldier, he knew tasks well. “And what is this task?” Uen’Bae was about to answer, when Zom’Pir cried out from further down the line of vats. “Get! Come here! It’s the Leader.” Not waiting for the Solarian’s response, the Micron general ran down the line of vats, until he came to where Zom stood. And there he was, barely discernable through the thick fluid, which held him in stasis. The sign on the vat indeed read Tar’Mul Car’Alm. Looking around, Get noticed the vats next to Tar’Mul’s held other leaders of the rebellion. “Look here, Zom. Pia’Sur, and Han’Ced.” The explorer looked joyous, “Ahh, old Han’Ced. Is his daughter here? She’s a good-looking one.” Get’Mol frowned at Zom, “A little respect wouldn’t go amiss, Zom.” Zom’Pir stuck his tongue out at his friend, “Oh yes, I forgot you had to have your sense of humour surgically removed before they let you in the Army. Don’t worry, Get, I’ll respect Han’Ced’s daughter as much as she wants me to.”

With a lascivious grin, the roguish explorer turned around to Uen’Bae. “You said you had a task for us, master Solarian?” The green-haired Solarian nodded, suddenly serious. “Zom’Pir Ero’Sir and Get’Mol Mai’Lor, you two have been chosen for a task not urgent, but long untended and necessary. The world outside this tower is one both barbarous and civilised. The people have technology, but none of the codes of conduct or honour that the Micron civilisation had. You two and the others here,” Uen’Bae waved a hand along the rows upon rows of vats, each containing a Micron, “are the last remnants of the Micron race. All others have either been obliterated or have interbred with humans so much that their original genealogy is all but lost. And your allies, the elves, have left this world.” Get’Mol’s indrawn breath spoke for the both of them. The elves had left? Who, then, guided the steps of the human race? Elves and Microns had always been the two races to which humanity looked for guidance, the elder races helping their younger brothers and sisters. Zom’Pir looked even more worried, and Get recalled the explorer had had many elven friends at the Ptian College.

Uen’Bae nodded, apparently satisfied with their reactions. “Yes, this is a grave problem. And a task not unbefitting a pair as resourceful as you two are. The universe needs the elves; they can hear its inner beat, what they call the time-space pulse. Without them, even our machinery cannot detect the minute shifts in the continuum that might precede a disaster of such momentous proportions as to make the Eve of Destruction look insignificant.