Book One - Chapter One: ii

Aislinn headed over to the kitchen portion of the large mess hall they had been playing cards in. The mess hall was presently only occupied by the four card players, as the other six crew members were asleep in their quarters. It was, after all, just after midnight on the last day of the Festival of Eostre, and everyone was exhausted.

This festival, which was held each year at the time of the Spring equinox, was celebrated on the planet of Bohemia for three consecutive days. It was a celebration of new life and is deeply rooted in the ancestral practices of the inhabitants of the planet of Bohemia. This period was also considered a National Holiday for all Boheme (Bohemian Citizens) and as a result, wild parties and celebrations covered the planet of Bohemia for three whole days.

“Did any of you watch the Fimbul Air-Bike race yesterday?” Fiadh asked to no one in particular. Fiadh was an avid Fimbul Air-Bike racing fan and would take advantage of any opportunity to discuss the topic with any interested — and even disinterested — parties. She was referring to the most recent Fimbul Air-Bike race that had been held in the National Region of Dagda. Sporting competitions were often held during National Holidays to allow the opportunity for as many Boheme to attend.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to catch the race. How about you, Cillian?” Toal asked sarcastically. “Did you watch the race yesterday afternoon? Oh wait, how silly of me. You were busy being arrested!”

Cillian opened his mouth to respond, but Fiadh got in first. “You guys should have watched it,” she said, the excitement in her voice barely hidden. “One racer was a visiting Mierese champion, and she was absolutely wicked. It was megs cray-cray with flippin’ space pancakes!” This expression was entirely unique to Fiadh and was one of the many peculiar expressions within her vocabulary. “At one point,” Fiadh continued, “after being pushed off course by another racer, she was able to make the most incredibles wizz-wizz snap cracker comeback to then place second in the race.” She sighed dramatically and looked wistfully off to her left before saying, “I wish I had known that we would be back from military duty in time for the race. I would have signed up for the race last month before the cutoff date.”

Certain sport activities and competitions held on Bohemia were open to foreign athletes and competitors. Ship racing was one of these, although Bohemian-only ship racing competitions also existed. Whilst the Boheme had specialised in racing Fimbul Ships, as these were their preferred brand of ships, many other talented Fimbul Ship racers existed elsewhere in Galia, hence why the occasional visiting champion would attend a local Bohemian racing competition.

“But, yeah,” continued Fiadh. “That Mierese champion was sooo good. I am definitely going to rewatch the race again.”

Fiadh looked up at the wall, her eyes glazing over and her face settling into a dumb smile.

“Who came first?” asked Toal.

Fiadh’s smile melted away to be replaced with a scowl. “You can probably guess. Captain Ronan Conroy of Clann Fearghaile took the first place, of course. As always. He was the bully that pushed the visiting Mierese champion off the course. It’s unsportsmanlike behaviour like this that gives Bohemia a bad reputation in some regions of Galia and makes foreign racing athletes not want to take part in our competitions.”

Cillian had been nodding off on his chair during this entire exchange. His lips were slightly parted and intermittently twitching, as his head slowly drifted off to the left. But at the mention of ‘Captain Ronan of Clann Fearghaile’, he jumped up from his chair, hands bunched before him in readiness for a fight.

“Where? Where?” Cillian said, his blood-shot eyes frantically looking around the mess hall.

Fiadh gently took his fists as she softly said, “Not here, not here, Cill. Calm down, brother.”

Captain Ronan was the arch nemesis of Cillian. They were both Captains in the National Military, both had at one time been champion Air-Bike Racers, both were experts in the practice of the national sport of Dornálaíocht (a type of ancient Irish boxing) and they had both obtained honours at University in their Military Studies. In fact the pair had previously attended the National University together, which is where they had first met, and had actually been best friends during that time, despite having always been rivals.

However, one day long in the past, when they were out on a reconnaissance mission in deep space, some unknown enemy force had attacked their squadron. The squadron had suffered heavy casualties, resulting in them being the sole survivors of the attack. All communication devices, as well as both the warp drive and subwarp engines of their ship, had been damaged beyond repair during the battle. The life support system on the ship had, however, remained intact. It took two months for a rescue team to eventually locate them. But something had happened to them during this time and both men had been changed indelibly in some deeply fundamental way. An irreparable gulf had formed between the pair from that moment onwards.

To this day, none but Cillian and Ronan know the full details of what occurred out on that isolated planet.

As Fiadh slowly lowered Cillian back to his chair, she reflected that the deep-seated trauma remained fresh as ever within Cillian. She watched her older brother slump back into the chair, his wild eyes searching her face for an answer that seemed to evade him.

How can I know the answer if I do not know the question, dear brother? thought Fiadh to herself.

“Off to bed with you then, Captain. It’s been a long day after all,” growled Toal in his deep baritone voice, but his gruff voice could not completely hide the undertones of mixed concern and affection.

Toal, the burly forty-eight-year-old Weapons Operator that he was, stood up from his chair, came around the table and without so much as a by-your-leave unceremoniously hoisted Cillian up across one shoulder.

Some time later, Cillian lay dejectedly on his bed, one leg draped lazily over the edge, propped up on an elbow and nursing a mug of steaming tea with both hands. He was wearing a scarlet red silk robe, which was opened at the front, partially revealing his tattooed chest. Tattooed roses peaked from behind the material. Cillian was a tall man of thirty-six years with an athletic build, his toned muscles the result of many hours of military fitness training, calisthenics and Dornálaíocht (the ancient Irish term for boxing).

He looks the perfect image of a brooding prince, thought Aislinn to herself as she watched from the doorway.

“How do you feel?” asked Aislinn as she crossed the room. They were in the Captain’s room of Ádh, the large battle-weathered Fimbul BYOS Butch ship they called home. Eighteen years prior, Cillian had affectionately dubbed the ship Ádh, which was the Irish word for luck, although he sometimes wondered whether he had somehow jinxed himself by naming it that. Cillian’s father, Cian O’Tuathail, had gifted the ship to Cillian on his eighteenth birthday. The ship had been Cian’s primary ship of use for over forty years during his time as a Captain in the National Military. Cian, in turn, had inherited the ship from his father, the legendary founder of Bohemia, Caedmon O’Tuathail. The ship had therefore been in the O’Tuathail family for three generations.

One week after Cillian had received the ship, Cian O’Tuathail, along with his entire crew, had gone missing whilst out on a military mission in the high-risk zone. Cillian had always partly blamed himself for his father’s disappearance, believing that somehow if his father had still had the ship, he would not have gone missing.

In any case, it was a gloriously ugly behemoth of heavy iron, bristling with cannons, gun turrets and missiles and capable of delivering a barrage of damage when required. Cillian and his crew were, after all, an elite Special Forces Squadron within the Bohemian National Military and therefore required a formidable fighting ship.

Cillian continued to look off into the distance, his bloodshot eyes partially glazed over as if he were looking at another scene, his mind lost in thought.

“Cillian?” said Aislinn as she reached the bed and lowered herself to a seated position on the edge of the bed. Her hair hung down past her waist to just above her well-rounded hips in a fall of snow coloured strands. Even her eyelashes and eyebrows were the colour of clouds. A soft alpine down covered her arms’ smooth skin, which was the colour of whisper white. Aislinn was an albino. But it was her eyes that really caught a viewer’s attention. They were a rich green colour flecked with brown slivers, like twin green stars burning in a sky of white light.

Cillian’s eyes remained fixed on unseen images, unblinking, unregistering. Aislinn placed a hand upon his left leg and, with a start, Cillian returned to the waking world from his deep reverie.

“Where were you?” Aislinn asked gently.

Cillian looked at her face, his eyes blinking rapidly before he then looked at the mug of tea in his hand.

“Drink up,” said Aislinn. “It is a potent mix of herbs and mushrooms. It will give you a good night’s sleep.”

Cillian nodded dumbly and brought the mug to his mouth and drank deeply, his hand shaking perceptibly. As the warm liquid entered his belly, he felt a soft veil drop upon his mind, softening his awareness and making his eyelids become heavy. He passed the mug back to Aislinn and lay back on the bed, closing his eyes in the process.

Aislinn placed the mug beside the bed and turned off the light. “Good night, my love,” she said, kissing his forehead. “May you have sweet dreams.”

As Cillian dropped into a deeper state of consciousness, he reflected on the past three days.

The day prior had marked the final day and night of the festival of Eostre. Cillian’s recollection of the festival was a haze of music, dancing, drinking, flying, at least three bar fights and several wild horse races.

For most of those participating in the festival of Eostre, it had been three days of orgiastic debauchery and hedonistic intemperance, forming itself into a three days long scream of exhilarating ecstasy. Sounds of deep thumping bass notes had echoed continuously through the air, whilst the shrieks and yells of dancers mingled with the treble notes of countless instruments, to form a giant soundscape of auditory dreams.

The collective consciousness of the Boheme had once again unburdened itself in a cathartic release. The accumulated psychic tension of an entire nation sloughing off like dead skin. It was a period of restorative and transformative spiritual healing achieved through the indulgence of sensory excess, which was facilitated by the consumption of various psychedelic botanicals and alcoholic beverages. The festival’s collective awareness had become untethered from the constraints of the ego shackles and had ridden the waves of the unconscious, dancing fitfully within the shadows cast by the light of inebriated surrender.

Three days of celebration, just as their ancient Gaelic ancestors had done thousands of years prior on the planet of Earth. For the Boheme were the direct descendants of the Irish Travellers, who were themselves the descendants of the Gaels who had populated the island nation of what eventually came to be known as Ireland on the planet Earth.

But that was all history now, and many things had come to pass from the time of the pre-Christian Irish Gaels to the present time. The remaining surviving descendants of the Irish Travellers now populated a small planet called Bohemia, which was many thousands of light years away from what had once been the planet of Earth.

However, one thing at least had remained the same, which was that despite the improbability presented by the obstacles of time and space, the tradition of celebrating the blossoming of Spring was being practiced in much the same manner on the planet of Bohemia as it had been some three thousand years prior on the Terran island of Ireland.

And so, with these final pleasant thoughts, Captain Cillian O’Tuathail of Clann Aodha drifted off to sleep.