Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 9 - The Heart Of Feylon

~ Planet fall

They were greeted with a cauldron of boiling crimson and orange, streaked with impossibly long purple clouds, knitted into the darkening ochre sky, stretching off into the horizon, for as far as their enhanced vision could see.

The small shuttle they were descending in had been spat out fifteen minutes previously by the gargantuan mother ship that floated silently some four hundred clicks above the planet.

K-Rox used a mixture of vision and the open NLink feed from the shuttle to trace their path back into high orbit. He watched as the solar cruiser pulled its inky black shadow silently across the surface of the planet.

Sometime later, K-Rox watched as trails of orange sparks accompanied by the fresh tang of ozone, ignited briefly in the night sky, to announce the arrival of more shuttles. Feylon-9 was popular for its planetary-wide firestorms, almost every network on the Qblock would be represented by someone or other..

K-Rox and Amorphia had gone for the winter equinox celebrations, arguably the most spectacular of the annual firestorms on Feylon. The planet designers had come to a clever compromise between the planet’s gravity and its two parent stars. Each day leading up to the equinox the firestorms were more and more spectacular, as the dense forest started to be burned away.

The storms were caused by a harsh short summer, where the orbit of Feylon would bring it so close to the nearest star in the binary system, that the planet became tidally locked for three system months. At the end of the cycle, any flora that hadn’t been consumed in the summer storms were robbed of all moisture, creating a tinderbox for hundreds of square kilometres.

*As the winter equinox approached, and the tiny planet was slung into the gravitational influence of Sillica, Feylon’s second star, the storms would start.

Raging wildfires in the south would race up the valley at breakneck speeds. The combination of the tug from Sillica would cause the fires to pulse and throb hypnotically, swirling and boiling, until they reached the part of the valley where it narrowed to just a few kilometres wide.

The effect was an incredible tsunami of fluid sea of bubbling fire. Actual waves would crash onto the sides of the mountain, creating a devastating illusion of terrifying, liquid flame.

They were standing barefoot on a cold, stone platform, halfway up the mountain that overlooked the main northern settlement, the light from the still-far-away firestorms gave a silent light show low, on the distant horizon. Amorphia joined him silently at his side.

He shut his eyes, preferring instead to feel her through his other senses, the smell of ozone still tinged the air, however now he could smell the faintest hint of burnt wood, gently tickling the inside of his nostrils.

She had encouraged him to feel like this as much as possible; so now he just stood, his head tilted back as if still watching the incoming orbital traffic, but eyes closed, barely breathing, just listening.

Asimov's Ghost Previous Chapters:

Asimov's Ghost -Chapter 0 - Alone In The Game

Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 2 - Phantoms In The Chain

Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 3 - The Storms Of Malcraft

Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 4 - Ghost In The Machine

Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 5 The Reality Dilemma

Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 6 - The Confusion Labyrinth

Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 7 - Alone In The Dark

Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 8 - Chasing Phantoms

Original artwork by @nekromarinist

Words by Cryptogee