The Dirk
By John Lacy

and crowded around the cockpit window. Reeling backwards, I unlatched the straps that bound me tightly to the pilot’s chair. A quick scan of the rattled cabin confirmed my fears: the computers were off-line. But wouldn’t that activate the locator beacon? I couldn’t remember. At this moment, I couldn’t remember any standard protocol.

Tearing recklessly through the asteroid field that encompassed this...this...

“Where the hell is this?” I bellowed, releasing the cockpit hatch and forcing it upward with a heavy boot. The sound of glass splintering resounded. Smoke rose from various cracks along the ship’s hull. The left wing turned backwards, pressing into the main gunnery deck. Surveying the damage, I realized that the heat generated from my haphazard entry into this planet’s atmosphere had caused the sand to crystallize upon touchdown. The thick grains formed a web of glass, netting the bulk of my fighter.

But touchdown? Was that truly appropriately for this landing? Splashdown maybe? Crashdown? Dear-God-will-she-ever-fly-again-down, maybe that was more appropriate.

A green light near the corner of my right eye flashed, igniting a rush of relief mixed with dire suffocation. In a dizzying whir of unlatching wrists and neck restraints, I fought to escape the suit that had supported my life. The green light told me the planet’s atmosphere was safe.

My eye’s seemed to stretch from their sockets, my skin clawing to stay attached as the helmet-seal parted from my suit. I pulled the bulbous head gear away. In rushed the air, and I gulped deeply, seeking the comfort of non-recirculated, uncanistered air.

A burn colder than an executioner’s heart seared through me. The bitter air tore at my lungs, my nostrils, my skin. I could almost feel blisters rising on my cheeks. My eyes began to water, tearing against the chilled wind.

“You call this safe!” I wailed at the helmet in a blinding rage and hurled it at my downed fighter, my fingers aching from the action. The dull thud echoed across the flat sandy plain. The helmet ricocheted past me. I spun, ducking low out of its rebounding trajectory, watching it skitter across the churned sand, coming to rest at something’s clawed feet.

Before my mind could process what was happening, I was backpedaling, careening across my ship’s wake, away from this thing, falling back into the open cockpit, my feet dangling skyward.

Geez, there must have been thirty of them! My mind screamed. How did they get so close?

My mind reeled, replaying every standard encounter training disc I had ever seen, inlaying its own fanatical images of vicious creatures nesting their young inside my hollowed cavity.

Get up!

My legs refused to listen. But then I felt myself moving, my arms pressing against the leather seat, heaving me upward. Craning my neck, my eyes immediately locked on the cloudy, gray orbs of the closest lizard-like inhabitant. It was a hulking, bipedal beast, nearly twice my height with thick corded muscles that bulged and flexed as it looked me over.

Regaining my confidence, remembering who I was, Lieutenant Dirk Gresham, Master Fighter Pilot of the Twenty-second Interstellar Armada, someone to be feared, a heavy hand of reckoning, I rose.

As I straightened my flight suit, surveying the gathered throng, the creature closest to me seemed to snarl in response, revealing its long muzzle of gleaming teeth.

Someone to be feared, I reminded myself, squaring my chest. “I can do this.”

Maintaining visual contact with the creature before me, I reached into a lower pocket on my left leg, stretching to maintain my full posture. Grasping the base of the instrument in my pocket, I extracted it, fully confident that I was in charge.

With a flick of my wrist, the Species Extractor opened. Two red lights flickered to life. The creature regarded it with little interest. Raising the instrument to eye level, so that I could view the screen and continue my visual connection with the inhabitant, I pressed the touchpad with my thumb. A deep blue light washed over the lizard creature before me.

Strong he stood, unflinching as the others chattered nervously, I suppose, behind it. The digitized screen projected a three-dimensional image of the scanned creature, standing half of its normal size, between us.

“Grag ut’ah vish!” the surprised creature seemed to stammer, spying its own digital image, rotating between us.

“Baeroks,” I moaned, reading the Species Extractor’s findings. “Then this must be a bloody Wasteland.”

Wastelands were scorched, arid regions, burned clean by cloudless skies and thin atmospheres. The inhabitants of these planets were either loathsome, pirating creatures or keenly pragmatic beasts. I hoped for the latter.

I disengaged the instrument, dissolving the projected image and slipped the tool back into my pants-leg pocket. As I thought about how that destroyer’s blast must have thrown me far off course, I realized that these inhabitants had taken up a faint chant.

“Baeroks. Baeroks. Baeroks,” they seemed to whisper in a deep, adagio tone, spurring the tiny hairs on the back of my neck upward. Article twelve, section seven-A: Rhythmic chanting is usually not a good sign.

“Yes, you are Baeroks, you filthy beast,” I replied with just a hint of sarcasm, but that only intensified their chanting.

“Baeroks. Baeroks. Baeroks,” their tempo hastened, and they accentuated each word with a thunderous crash of long spears against the packed dirt.

“I know. Baeroks,” I quipped, swirling my finger in the air. “Good for you.” Again, my recognition spurred them on more.

“Baeroks! Baeroks! Baeroks!” They lurched forward on each word, still thudding their heavy spears against the ground, swirling dust clouds that cast us all in a blurring haze.

“Okay! I got the point!” The situation swirled out of control. As their chant became a feverish roar, they partook of slamming into each other. The metallic spurs which wrapped their biceps dug into those closest to them.

“Baeroks!Baeroks!Baeroks!”

The lizard creature that had been closest to me, spun about, catching another of its kind under its chin. Dark blood spewed forth in thick streams from the gashes made by the spurs. Slowly it dropped, fighting to stay upright. Another caught it aside its head with a bony tail, collapsing the dying creature to the ground. Immediately, the ravenous crowd trampled the fallen creature.

They drew closer to me, backing me into my ship and still chanting: “BaeroksBaeroksBaeroks!”

Confused and desperate, I pointed to myself and shouted, “Dirk!”

The feral mantra ceased, dying to the ground with the heavy dust cloud. A dreadful sense of unease washed over me. Maybe they’ve heard of me, I chuckled hopefully under my breath, steadying my trembling nerves. I stepped tentatively away from my ship, thrusting my thumb into my chest and repeated, “Dirk!”

The throng skittered backward, ostensibly repeating the word to themselves.

“Baerok,” I said pointing to them. “Dirk,” I said again, pointing this time to myself.

“Gi’s ‘urg dirk,” said one of the Baerok’s, drawing shrugs from those around him. His statement seemed like a question as I heard him say my name.

“Gi nis ‘urg dirk,” responded another from the back, his twisted snout spraying saliva as it spoke. Hearing its words, all others turned towards it.

“Egd je’zz mun gorddin gim su!” the same creature seemingly cheered, for its deep guttural grunts seemed elated.

With that, the gathered audience of Baeroks laughed in response, turning their pupil-less eyes towards me. Still clutching their long spears, they rushed in, grabbing me, hoisting me into the air, ignoring my futile screams.

“’Urg dirk,” they chanted, much as they had chanted Baerok earlier, and carried me away from my ship. No matter the amount of twisting and pulling, I could not break free of the amazingly strong grips of these creatures. These primitive creatures, I soon realized as they bore me into their village, still chanting.

“’Urg dirk. ‘Urg dirk.”

Hides of what appeared to be their own kind stretched over thin, arcing poles, creating domed habitats. Every so often, a patch of matted fur, probably from some Wasteland animal, was woven into the shelters.

Shallow bubbling pots smoldered over open pits, gurgling with a sickening, muddy sound. From my elevated view, I spied elder Baeroks, staring listlessly skyward, splayed out in the open, away from the shelters. Thin, sinuous grey fibers trailing down their knotted backs gave clues to their decrepit age. Like elders of my own kind, dark liver spots coated their leatherish-skin.

But to my right, down a slight decline, was the exact opposite. A high-walled pen watched over by four Baeroks held a multitude of tiny lizard creatures, moving in one unified mass of miniature snapping maws and those same cloudy, gray eyes.

Near the center of the village, the ‘Urg-dirk-chanting throng brought me to a large Adirondack-style hut. On a dais scattered with splotchy red pillows reposed a Baerok of unusually large stature.

“Vut nis p’mot,” it spoke. Its inflection made me think he asked the group something. Probably something about me.

“P’mot nis ‘urg dirk,” the lizard, who I had earlier scanned, responded. The crowd again turned their heads towards me.

“Dirk?” I said, somewhat hesitant.

Their heads immediately spun back towards the reptilian creature seated before them, silence fluttering dangerously in the air.

“Gi’s ‘urg dirk,” it replied, its statement seeming much like a question as earlier.

“Je’zz mun gorddin gim su!” responded the Baerok with the twisted snout again, who received a shower of punches after spraying those around it with thick strands of saliva.

“Gorddin gim su?” it asked. I definitely perceived that as a question. “Gorddin gim su?” it asked again, edging forward.

The audience remained silent as the creature looked me over, twisting its head from side to side, my handlers shifting me so that it might receive a better view.

It bobbed its head and spoke, a smile apparently crossing its elongated muzzle. “Gi’s urg dirk.” The words were definitive this time. The assembled mass cheered and passed me forward, moving me towards the dais.

Once there, the chief Baerok slipped from the dais, leaving me alone.

“Kaiy gim de’erge,” it said, bringing its fingers to its muzzle and then pointing to me. By the way the others scurried about I definitely recognized that as a command. Minutes later, smaller Baeroks, only as tall as me, tottered forth, bearing large platters upon their heads.

“De’erge,” they said, placing the stone platters on the dais and backing away.

Small blackened slugs writhed across the platter, smearing trails of green mucous. My stomach churned, and I reeled backwards, the stench rousing bile in my stomach.

“De’erge,” they said again as they brought their fingers to their mouths.

Food, I guessed they were saying, but there was no way that I could stomach those morsels on that plate. My mind flashed images again of creatures nesting their young inside my hollowed cavity.

“De’erge,” they repeated once more.

“Not de’erge,” I sputtered and accentuated the point by kicking the platter off of the dais with my boot. The Baerok underlings scurried away, running towards the chief, who appeared busy instructing others.

“Gi kalt hu’nt de’erge,” they said in high, pleading voices as they coward before the chieftain, pointing back at me.

The chief ran its massive hand over its brow. “Vesh hu’nt,” it said.

The underlings bobbed their heads in unison.

“That’s right,” I said to myself, guessing the meaning of their short conversation. “I won’t eat. Not that crap, anyway.”

The chieftain folded its arms across its barreled chest, its gray eyes locking with mine. I was not about to look away. Not now. He would not break me.

“Vesh hu’nt!” I yelled at the chief in protest.

Suddenly, the chieftain’s head jerked as if awaking from a dream, and, immediately, it snapped its thick fingers in the air.

Three large Baeroks darted from behind a hut, coming to attention before the chief. I could not understand exactly what it said, but the Baeroks nodded once and quickly departed.

For what seemed like hours, I was not presented with anymore uneatable de’erge that I vesh hu’nt. During this time, I did come to realize, to my favor, that their language was rather rudimentary, consisting of mainly short, simple sentences.

As I reclined upon the many pillows, surveying the camp, I deduced two things. First, and most unnerving, was the fact that these pillows were probably red because they had been stained with the blood of their elder brethren. Confirming the notion was the many liver spots adorning the taut hide.

The second deduction concerned my flight back to my fighter. That would not be able to occur until the sun set, allowing me to slip away in a cover of darkness. Which immediately attuned me to the fact that they left me unsupervised until I noticed the two guards, one flanking my right among a crop of small lizard-skin tents. The other high and two my left, perched in the rafters of a large, metal-caged hut. Often, they gestured to each other with short hand codes. The movements were too swift for me to yet deduce.

And it was also from this same hut that a most pleasing aroma had wafted, traveling in thin, wisps of gray. And it was with a greater interest that I viewed the comings and goings of the Baeroks around this hut as they carried in platters of anything that was not black and slug-like.

*          *          *

A sharp prick to my nose bolted me upright to sit amongst the pillows. Realizing I had dozed, my hands searched for any tears or openings in my flight suit. They wouldn’t be planting their young in my belly, by God!

But how long had I dozed? The sun seemed as though it had hardly moved, still hanging firm, bright and burning in the blue, cloudless sky.

“Fet hu’nt,” a small creature barked, sliding a warm platter in front of me. By the long nails on its claws, this was obviously the same creature that had awakened me. “Fet hu’nt.”

“Eat,” I said, trying to discern the words it had spoken by what I had already learned and by its actions. “Hu’nt is eat. Eat...eat...you eat! That’s it isn’t,” I said to my server, comprehending the words. “Fet hu’nt. You eat.”

The lizard pointed to itself and shook its head, backing away. “Kalt,” it said, pointing to itself still shaking its head. “Fet,” it then said pointing to me and stressing the word more than before. “Fet hu’nt.”

“Yeah, I got you,” I said to myself, poking warily around the platter. “You eat.”

The meat on the platter was long and stringy, the luscious aroma dancing around my nose. At this point, I became aware of how truly hungry I was. The dark sauce was thick and syrupy. It dripped from my finger in long, oozing droplets. I noticed the lizard that had served the food, eyeing the sauce on my finger, its mouth watering.

“When in Rome, right,” I chirped drawing the creatures head upward, away from the platter, to look at me. I pulled a shred of the meat away from the thick bone and held it before me.

“Bet it taste like chicken,” I said to my companion and then stuffed the de’erge, food, into my mouth. It was moist and tender. The sauce teemed with a certain piquancy that I couldn’t quite place. Eagerly, I shred another piece and devoured it as quickly. In a matter of moments, the same small lizard returned bearing another platter, carrying away the one that I had emptied.

“Good de’erge,” I said to him with my cheeks stuffed full. The creature simply stared, then ran away as it was apparently called by someone at the cooking shelter.

By the bottom of the fourth platter, my hunger was satiated. I swirled my finger through the sauce, moving around the hunks of remaining meat. With my tongue wagging, I lurched to slurp the goodness from my finger when I spotted a hair. A gray hair. A long gray hair still connected to a liver-spotted piece of skin.

I retreated into the pillows, my stomach arguing about what I had done, twisting and knotting. Gradually, it settled until my eyes rested upon one of the similarly spotted pillows. I dove through the cushions, seeking the backside of the dais, where I at once expunged the elder Baerok that I had so earlier enjoyed.

“Dirk?” I heard someone ask. Someone with a human voice. I straightened immediately, scanning the primitive village. “Dirk, are you there?”

The voice came from the transmitter piece on my flight suit. The computers on my ship had obviously come back on-line.

“He’s not answering,” I heard the voice reply to someone else.

“I’m here,” I yelled, pressing the communicator. “This is Dirk.” Was I too late? The wait for a response seemed interminable.

“Good to hear from you, Dirk,” the voice responded, and my heart started beating again. “We’ve located the beacon on your ship and will be there for extraction in a matter of hours. How are you holding up?”

Holding up? I thought to myself. I just ate an old person; does that answer your question?

“Dirk are you there?”

“I’m here,” I responded, snapping from my internal rant. “I’m okay. I’m with a group of Baeroks,” I laughed and then added, “I’m ‘urg dirk.”

The transmitter was silent. The color slowly eroded from my face. “Are you there?” I asked, realizing then that my hands were trembling. “Command?”

Only silence.

The creatures in the village seemed to move towards me, moved in slow motion, their voices deep and slurred. Closing my eyes, I rubbed the crook of my nose, feeling myself sway, battling to stay upright. A dry, acidic taste trickled into my throat.

“Dirk!” the transmitter crackled, and the volume around me returned. My head lifted from the clouding fog.

“We lost you there for a moment...transmission static.”

I said something back, I’m not sure what exactly, but I feigned the calmness that I battled to attain.

“What were *skrr* saying? *skrr* Baeroks.” The words from the transmitter came in incomprehensible burst. “You said *skrr*-irk? *skrr* is god.”

“Command?” I cried out desperately. “Command are you there?”

This time they did not return, did not respond to my cry. Would they still be able to find me? Would they still-

“Don’t do this!” I said aloud to myself. “Focus, Dirk. They’ve pinpointed the signal. They will come, Dirk.”

Dirk. How odd the name suddenly sounded. What had command been saying before I lost them? Something about Dirk and God. Why did my name excite them, these Baeroks? I noticed then that the creatures all seemed to bend slightly as they walked by, glancing only furtively at me. I realized too the lush comfort that I rested in, taking the chief Baerok’s position.

I slipped from the dais and began to move about the open courtyard. The lizard creatures to my right and left that I noticed earlier disappeared from their positions, running probably to the chieftain.

The creatures moving about me appeared, I think, jovial because of my presence. They moved sideways, still in their intended direction, but all-the-while maintaining a curious eye upon me.

“Beh’jong utesta,” a familiar voice said, placing a hand upon my shoulder that spun me around. It was the chief. “Fet utesta,” it said, guiding me back towards the dais.

“You,” I replied. “You said something about you. You what?” My mind raced scanning the dais, scanning the pillows. “You sit, you relax, you rest? You what,” I barked. “Tell me.”

The chief’s brow furrowed, obviously aware of my hostile tone. “Fet utesta,” it said, somewhat soothingly, pressing a pillow against my head as it hoisted me onto the high structure.

“It’s rest, isn’t it?” I asked grabbing the pillow. “Utesta. Rest, right.” I held the pillow against my head and closed my eyes, making exaggerated snoring noises. “Utesta! Rest!”

The chieftain bobbed his head and in a barely discernable voice, said, “rest,” and walked away.

“Utesta,” I gasped sliding back to the pillows, marveling at myself. I had done it. I had communicated with them. And more importantly, Dirk meant god.

For the greater portion of the day, I reclined on the pillows surveying the village, monitoring their movements, basking in an undeniable sense of security, but still noting with great dismay that the sun had visibly moved, but barely. How would I escape to meet the retrieval crew? They certainly did not seem so willing to just let their god leave them.

The thoughts were brisk, however, as they were soon replaced with a new quandary. Along the southern rim of the campsite, Baeroks scattered as a cloud of dust moved across the barrens, distant figures at the head. The chief Baerok along with several soldiers, as I discerned them, moved through the retreating crowd, standing firm at the camp’s edge.

“Shei’dibon fematis ber spawtris,” the chief commanded, pointing back to the lesser lizard creatures crouched around their huts. A score of soldiers swept up these lesser creatures and herded them towards secretive shelter openings that pierced the desert ground.

In an unbelievably short amount of time, the distant figures loomed along the camp’s border, spreading their masses. They stood as large as the Baeroks but rode on giant reptilian creatures. The great maws of the animals could easily swallow a whole Baerok or break it in half with long, glinting incisors.

“Proztik mi dirk!” growled the largest creature astride a massive beast, which bore large metal ringlets intertwined in its coarse mane. Each twisted strand terminated into a bleached white skull. A Baerok skull.

“He said Dirk,” I whined. “Why did he say Dirk?” Could they truly see me as a god? If so, why did they not want me to come out to defend them? Certainly, as a god, I should be able to smite. Wouldn’t they want me out there for smoting. Even more frightening, what if they did come for me for just that?

Nevertheless, the chief stood strong against the larger’s harsh tone. “’Urg dirk,” he growled back, thrusting his thumb into his own chest.

“’Urg dirk,” I said, rolling the words around. “Our dirk...our god.” My eyes widened at the realization. That’s what they had been chanting all this time. “Our god.”

“Fet de uni’as mortalis.” The words rolled cruelly from the greater, lizard creature, and its giant steed lurched forward, snapping at the Baerok closest to it, easily separating the defenseless Baerok from its lower half.

The Baeroks were not totally defenseless, however. Along the border, several domed canopies dropped, revealing cannons that, undeniably, had been pieced together from several different parts. Metallic umbrellas expanded, sparking blue lines of electricity along their unfolding tips. Before the invaders could discern the events, several electrical blasts ripped through the throng of combatants, searing the hide of all that crossed its path.

A concentrated blast skirted along the ground, slicing open the belly of the enemy commander’s steed. A great gout of blood and gore poured from the beast’s fatal wound. Among the oozing contents, the chewed head and torso of a Baerok could be seen.

The tide of battle was with the Baeroks, the cannons easily unbalancing the fight. They cheered as the invaders fled, leaving behind many dead and wounded. It did not matter though, for all of the carcasses, living or dead, were carried off to the two-story cooking shelter.

“Dirk, *skrr* everything okay?” cracked a voice over my transmitter, stirring me from viewing the decrepit sight. “What’s going *skrr* there? We’re picking up *skrr* of activity.”

“I’m fine,” I replied, my throat hardening, joyful to hear Command’s voice again. “Just a small skirmish with a neighboring tribe, I believe.”

“Just *skrr*-mish with *skrr* we’re just *skrr*-inutes over *skrr*” The transmission was nearly indecipherable, but they said they were near. How near? Were they just ten minutes away? Two minutes? Thirty minutes? Fifty minutes?

“Command, are you there?” I pleaded, trying to hear one last word from them, but silence was the only reply. Nothing.

A sturdy hand clasped my shoulder, pulling me down from the dais. The chieftain seemed to beam as it regarded me, and then regarded the surrounding Baeroks. Holding its massive fist in the air, shaking it triumphantly, the Baeroks cheered, hooting loudly as we moved among them away from the dais.

“’Urg dirk!” they cheered. “’Urg dirk!”

Towering over me, I knew not where we headed, nor where we were. Dust rose beneath their stamping feet, and they chanted still.

“’Urg dirk nis secres. ‘Urg spawtris de hu’nt,” the chief bellowed, drawing a deeper roar from the gatherers.

My mind raced to assimilate the words. Our god is what? I didn’t understand that last word. Sacred maybe? But what about the other part. Our something. I knew I had heard the word earlier but could not remember where. Spawtris, what did it mean?

“Fifteen min*skrr*-irk. Be ready,” Command sputtered over the transmitter. I barely noticed their transmission over the chant of ‘Urg dirk.

“Roger that, Command,” I replied, gazing upward, looking for any sign of their ship. My eyes instantly reverted to the path ahead, as I stumbled down an embankment, my fall ceased by the steady hand of the chief. At the bottom of the bank, we crossed over into a large circular pin. The chief helped me over and crossed with me.

“What’s going on, Dirk?” Command asked, struggling to be heard over the din. “What’s that noise?”

“Brail’int menoto felbrainis Baeroks!” the chief roared, thrusting both of its fists into the air. The rhythmic chanting shifted to a crescendo of wild hooting.

“I think that they think that I’m their god,” I yelled in the transmitter, wondering if I was even heard. “Like you said, ’Urg dirk.” My mind raced back to the chief’s earlier words still trying to decipher them.

Spawtris.

I knew the word, but from where. And hu’nt. I knew that one. That meant eat.

“Negative, Dirk,” the voice spouted from the transmitter. “That’s *skrr* negative. Not *skrr*-peat. Not *skrr*”

“Say again, Command,” I pleaded, failing to grasp even a shred of the transmission. Or maybe my mind refused to grasp what I knew.

“De’irk is god. *skrr* is god,” Command responded. A chill ran through me, freezing my blood, by lungs refusing to draw air. My feet rooted to the solid desert floor. I was no longer inside myself. I could see myself standing in the center of the pin, alone. Move dammit!

“Good lord, Dirk. We *skrr*-ized.”

Somewhere behind me, a gate opened, a sea of tiny lizard spawns streaming forth, their bleats growing louder as they charged.

Spawns.

“Dirk is *skrr*-der.”

Spawtris hu’nt.

“Repeat, *skrr* is fodder. Dirk is fodder.”