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THE AERIE
We called it the aerie. It was an old earth word used to describe a place where birds of prey made their nest. The ironic thing was that now the only place left on Earth that had birds were in the Biospheres. They were the last few places in our home world that we were able to keep alive while the rest of the planet was sterile and unable to sustain life.
The earth was more a museum now than anything else. The one place in the universe that we humans had evolved from, whether from divine intervention or a random act of biology, it was our ancestral home. But the human race had failed as her caretakers and now the third planet from the sun in the Sol system was mostly a dead rock spinning through space.
We had to leave Mother Earth and hope that in time she could heal herself from all the damage we had done. Now the Biospheres that held the last of the human race sped through the blackness of space searching for a new place to call home. This time we told ourselves we would do things right, this time we would honor the world that we would make our home, this time we promise we had learned from our mistakes.
My expedition was one of the lucky ones. We had managed to find a world that could sustain us without having to live in the massive Bioship that brought us here. We could live, work, and breath on this planet. Our settlement wasn't locked away in a Biosphere because the environment was hazardous to humans. Our landing craft was still the command center of the settlement. It housed the hospital, library, and communications, but our day to day living for most of us consisted of a small village.
Each hut was wooden, partially dug into the soil for shelter, and covered by a moss roof that helped add insulation on the cold winter nights. Our settlement had five years to become successful. Five years to establish enough crops to feed us, we had to find shelter and be able to bear healthy children. All of this so that soon permanent colony could be founded. We had five years to save the human race. And we were running out of time. But there was a problem. We were not alone in our new world. There was a race of people already here and they lived in the aerie.
We called them Angels. They were humanoid in shape. Two arms, two legs, a head and torso, but the most striking part of their anatomy was the wings. They had massive wings and they could fly. From what we could tell they lived in a massive mountain. Although mountain may be a misconception I suppose. It was actually a dormant volcano well, mostly dormant anyway. Our village was nestled at the base of the mountain. We harvested the geothermal energy that was hidden just under the surface.
The Angels were a constant presence to us. They circled the settlement high in the sky. No one had ever seen one close up before. They kept to themselves and had nothing to do with us. There was a constant debate as the whether or not they were even intelligent or nothing more than animals. Most of the colony thought them nothing more than mindless creatures; because in all the time we had been here not once had any of them tried to make contact.
I grew up on one of the last remaining farms on Earth, so I knew how an animal behaved. These Angels didn't seem like mindless creatures to me. I watched them as they flew through the sky. I saw how they always followed set patterns, using wind currents to conserve energy. How they always took flight in formations and even staged mock battles in the sky above us. They were vocal too. Everyone else in the village thought their screams and howls were just random calls of an animal. But I knew better. I heard the patterns in their vocalizations. I knew that the Angels were intelligent and not the mindless creatures that people thought them to be.
I was looking up at the Aerie when one of Angels swooped down low over the settlement shouting loudly before it shot up again straight into the clouds.
"Oh my gosh! That was a close one. Why do they do that you suppose?"
It was my neighbor Melody who asked me that as we both shielded our eyes to follow an Angel with golden wings bank high in the sky and glide off to the west.
"I think he is trying to warn us about the storm that's rolling in soon. You know how they do that when a big storm is going to hit. Hell, half the time we don't even have to herd in the livestock." I laughed at Melody and pointed over at the barn nearby that was obviously full. "They do it for us, look."
"And just where do you think you're going, missy? You know how fast these summer storms roll in. I grew up in Tornado Alley back home on Earth. So I know what I'm talking about, believe me. This isn't the time to be heading out and about."
I listened to her warning and almost decided to turn around and head back into my cabin to wait out the storm. But sadly there were more important things that I had to take care of before the storm rolled in. Grabbing some protective gear and a radio I waved to her as I walked out of the village and toward a small hillside just outside the settlement.
I was an engineer and it was my job to make sure things ran smoothly. We weren't completely in the dark ages here. We did manage to bring technology with us as we set out to colonize other planets. I was in charge of making sure things kept working after we landed. One of those things was making sure the drop ship we arrived here in and also the surrounding village had adequate power. Solar was one of the easiest way to harvest the power we needed and that worked great. If the skies were clear and you had enough hours in the day of sunlight, it was the cheapest and easiest way to power even a large city. But as fate would have it this planet had a rainy season. Huge thunderstorms that blocked out the sun for days at a time were a common event this time of year. So that left wind. Which during the rainy season was in abundance.
Safely tucked away and built on a large hilltop was the wind farm. Ten windmills set up to maximize all the power that the thunderstorms could dish out. I checked the weather report from the command center earlier in the day so I knew that this evening storm was a huge super cell thunderstorm. It would generate enough power to charge all of the batteries throughout the village and even provide some much needed backup power to our reserves. But first I had to get all of the windmills to work and that was my problem. One of the darn things was being finicky.
So off I went to try and get the last of them to get with the program and start working. We didn't have the manpower to tear the damn thing down and rebuilt it from scratch, but I had a sinking suspicion that if I couldn't get it working soon it would have to be scrapped for parts. It was a setback that our efforts here couldn't afford. This was the last year of our five year mission and we were running out of time.
Just as I was standing under the huge structure of the windmill I heard thunder off in the distance. The air had that moist, humid smell that you only find right before it rains so I knew that time was short.
"Ok Marge." I took out my tool kit and opened up the control panel on the side of the main tower. "Can I call you Marge? You and I are going to come to an understanding today. I'm going to reinstall your software and run some diagnostics. And you, on your part will start to pull your weight. If ya don't and continue to piss me off I will cut you down into little pieces of scrap myself. Ok? Do we have a deal?" I stupidly paused, waiting for this three story hunk of metal to answer me. When no protest was forthcoming, I started speaking again. "Right. Ok then… here we go."
It was more than an hour later before I realized that no matter what I tried I just couldn't get the windmill operational before the storm hit. The temperature had dropped several degrees in that hour and dark clouds were blowing in with a strong wind. Looking up at the sky, I could see that even most of the Angels had stopped flying through the sky. There were only one or two stragglers high above me and even they were heading to the Aerie seeking shelter from the elements.
I heard my name called out to me as a cold rain began to fall all around me. Within seconds I was soaked to the bone and shivering in the cold downpour. Between the massive storm clouds and the approaching sunset I was losing light fast and running out of time.
"Rachelle were are you? The storm is here what are you doing out in this mess? Come on, you need to get inside right now. What ever it is you're doing its going to have to wait until tomorrow."
I had started shivering and my hands were numb and shaking with the cold making them useless.
"David I'm over here. Just give me five more minutes and I should be done."
I heard David's footsteps splashing through the rain as he came closer to me.
"You got three minutes and then I'm hauling your ass out of here. I'll do it Rachelle even if I have to throw you over my shoulder to do it."
"Oh will you stop being such a Neanderthal and come here and help me with this last connection. My hands are too numb."
He helped me plug in the last of the circuit boards, then closed and locked the electrical housing.
David was what you would call our unofficial town sheriff. He was the one who usually looked after everyone and one way or the other managed to keep the peace. Whether it was finding a diplomatic solution to a difficult dispute. Or stopping a bar fight by taking out both combatants with a well placed punch, David was the one who people looked to for guidance. Most people thought it was because he was the son of the Captain of the ship that brought us here. But I knew him better than most. I knew that he was a born leader like his father had been. But if you asked him to his face, he would shake it off and just say that anyone of us could do the same.
I keyed in the start up sequence on the control panel of the windmill and held my breath waiting for it to come online. Nothing happened. I looked up at the blades of the structure that hadn't begun to move and the turbine was silent, even in the biting wind. In frustration I began to kick at the base of the tower, shouting with every word that came out of my mouth.
"Come on you worthless hunk of metal!"
With a deafening whine the turbine kicked in, the back tail helped it spin into the wind, and the blades of the windmill began to turn. I jumped around for joy. Dancing around waving my arms like a mad woman, shouting up at the sky as the storm intensified. I started to slip in the mud, but before I landed on my butt two strong arms grabbed me and held me close. As David held me in his arms I enthusiastically grabbed his face in both of my hands and slammed our lips together in a wet noisy kiss.
As he wrapped his arms around me to hold me closer it dawned on me what I was doing and who I was doing it with. David was a good friend, but by the way he was kissing me back, I had a feeling that what he felt for me was something more than mere friendship. We stood there kissing each other in the downpour. The mood was broken when a ear-splitting sound of thunder echoed all around us. I pulled back from the kiss to look into his eyes.
"Don't you think we should be getting back?"
I felt his arms slowly fall away, like he didn't want to let me go and had no plans, but to keep kissing me in the rain. He pulled his face away to look at me and I knew that the two of us could never go back to just being friends. David had a look in his eyes that told me we were going to do much more than kissing in the future.
"I hope you getting this silly thing operational was worth your life. If we don't get hit by lightning in a few seconds, you're liable to catch a cold or suffer from hypothermia before we get back."
We raced the worst part of the storm down the hill and into the village before it hit. David led me straight to the hospital. They treated me for mild exposure while the storm raged on through the night. All through the night the sky was lit with huge arcs of lightning and the thunder that was as deafening as a war zone. It wasn't until midday the next day before it was safe enough to go outside and survey the damage.
The first thing I did was to evaluate the solar panels and windmills for any damage. Of course, my favorite finicky windmill friend Marge didn't survive the night. I gathered my gear and made the trek up the hillside again. This time with a heavy heart and plans to decommission Marge.
The sound of wings made me stop a few feet in front of the windmill before I reached its base. Golden feathers were glistening like scattered stars all over the ground. One of the Angels was sitting at the base of the windmill with his head resting on his bent legs. His hair was white and fell to just brush the tops of his wide shoulders. He was lean, tall and slim like an athlete. I was positive that if he were standing he would be well over six feet tall and most likely closer to seven feet tall. His wings were spread open on either side of his body and they were easily twice his height. One of them was injured and even I could tell that it was bent back at an unusual angle.
His head snapped up as he heard my footsteps draw closer. My eyes met the most beautiful pair of blue eyes I had ever seen. Black eyelashes framed almond shaped eyes that had tri-colored irises. His pupils were black just like the human eye. The center of his iris was an electric blue that seemed to be lit with a glow from within, and the outer rim of the blue had a ring of sparkling gold.
He held out his hand to me with its long elegant elegant fingers. His face was pleading as he said.
"Help me."