Mistaken for a Star God (M for F, Sci-Fi/Fantasy)

[IrishWolf]

Everyone knew that war was coming.

The harvest last year had been bad. The God’s displeasure had seen little rainfall and crops wither in the summer heat. Traders brought news of famine and disease. Luckily, the King and the priests were wise men and the temple granaries had been full, has had been the King’s storerooms. The winter had been cold and bitter but the people had been fed throughout. There was still grain left, for the fields to be planted and to see the people to the first harvests. The spring was even looking good, the weather seemed to be warm and wet enough to restore the soil, without rotting the seeds.

However, just because the people of Kerkiae had survived, did not mean the other city states had been so well off. Indeed, there were whispered tales of starvation in nearby kingdoms. With grain worth more than gold, the King had readied his household warriors and summoned his retainers to defend the city. No doubt desperate neighbors would try to force their way in and strip the great city of all it’s wealth, enslaving the people to work their own fields or selling them to buy foreign foodstuffs.

What the King had not expected, was that three rival cities, would ally against him. Even now, their armies mustered. It would only be a matter of time, before they were besieged. There was no hope that he could defeat them in the field, not if they combined. Nore could he face them one at a time or he would find Kerkiae overrun while the army was away. The King prayed. The Priests prayed. The people made weapons and tried their farming and merchant hands at warriors work. News came that the armies marched.

Then a chariot of the gods, fell from the sky.

Days would pass, the priests debating in their temples. Some said this was a God of War, come to oversee the approaching battle. Others were sure this was the arrival of an avatar of a God or perhaps one of the immortal champions, to be swayed to one side or another. A few claimed that this was a God of their enemies. On the fifth morning, with the news that the enemy armies were barely a day’s march away, the King decreed that the Priests would leave the city and head up into the hills, to where the chariot had smote the ground. They would perform the rites and make the sacrifices. If they could not get this divine personage on their side, then at least they might persuade them to be impartial in judging the battle.

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Lieutenant Scott Hope, of the Stellar Confederation Colonial Marine Corps, was not having a good week. While his batallon was enroute for deployment, the convoy had been attacked. Enemy frigates, light cruisers and even a goddamn battlecruiser, ripped their escorts apart and tore into the transports. He barely made it out alive. The memories come back in flashes. The sensation of the ship shuddering as it was raked with particle beams. The smell of scorched metal and burning electronics. Panicked marines and sailors surging around him. The horror of finding empty escape pod bays. The last drop shuttle. The explosion damaging the engines and sending the shuttle hurtling away, end over end. The pain as he was bounced around the cabin as the shuttle hit atmosphere and then, blessed darkness.

He woke up in the crashed shuttle, legs broken, ribs cracked and bruised, a pounding headache. He is pretty sure he got a concussion. Luckily for him, the shuttle had a med kit, the kind you were supposed to use on injured troops being evacuated. The trouble was, it wasn’t on the flight deck but back in the troop compartment. He had been forced to crawl, dragging his legs, all the way back. Thankfully, he only passed out twice, before he reached the cabinet marked with the age old symbol of a red cross.

The medical pads, with their nanomachines and drugs were a godsend but it still took a few days before he could walk again. Thankfully, once he could, the Lieutenant was able to return to the flight deck and launch the handful of string-of-pearls satellites the shuttle had. They didn’t do much, designed for communication primarily but they did pick up an escape pod to the north of where he had crashed landed. It was unsettling that he couldn’t get anyone to answer his comm calls. But he needed to get to that pod, unlike the shuttle, it would have an emergency rescue beacon. When the fleet did finally come looking for them, he wanted to be found.

Although there was a new problem.

As he was making his last attempt to call the pod, natives had shown up. Primitive looking, they had begun some sort of ritual outside the shuttle. Maybe they had thought the shuttle was some sort of demon or dragon. He wanted to shoo them away but regulations meant he couldn’t interact with such a low tech species. He’d just have to wait until they went away. The only good thing out of this setback, was the translator program on the shuttle systems, was picking up a lot of words. He might be able to talk to them, if the situation got desperate enough.

Scott watched with amusement as the natives set up some sort of altar, dancing around it and prostrating themselves before it. He arched an eyebrow as they piled up pottery before the rear ramp, it looked like sealed jars and jugs of something. He was surprised when they started slaughtering some local animals over the altar and leaving cuts of meats with the pottery. A sickening feeling hit his stomach, when they brought forward what looked like a female. If she had been human, from her sluggish movements and wondering eyes, he’d have said she was drugged or in a trance.

Grabbing a combat helmet and jamming it on his head, he ran, each time his feet hit the deck, pain lanced up his body. The last thing he had seen on the screen, was the natives getting the female to kneel down before the altar, baring her throat. One of the others picking up a stone knife. The same one they had used to cut the throats of the animals.

Screw the regs.




So, long story short, I am looking to write a story about a human marine being mistaken for a god or other divine being by aliens that are roughly at the bronze age. Trying to get him on their side in a coming war, they are making offerings, including a female sacrifice. She could be an expensive and tell trained slave girl or a noble’s daughter or a priestess. He manages to stop them from killing her but she is still given to him as a gift.

If your interested in expanding this idea and coming up with an interesting alien race, please send a PM

[IrishWolf]

Gonna bump this

[Luna Skywind]

I've sent a message, but I will give this post some attention too!