Tenac and his soldiers did not wait for
orders. As though the man’s words of
warning were their command, they turned toward the entrance and any other
possible passage ready to fire. Otto put
away the artifact and grasped his gun, but he stalled and asked, “Who set a
trap? How did they know we were coming…”
“The Dark ones. Those who wish to deny humanity is not alone
in the universe. For decades they’ve
wanted at my research. I had hidden it
all away up here. They told me you’ve
been making noise selling relics everywhere, and that you’d be coming to me
next. They’re just outside and they’ll
be coming in any moment.”
“What are your other exits…”
“There are none. They made abso there weren’t. If, by some bluck, you can make it out of
here, however, I will show you how that device prevays. And if it works, you should be rich beyond
your wildest dreams.”
It was, of course, the last sentence that
convinced Otto to get him out with them.
But getting out would require some help.
“Shasa, come in. We need backup,”
Otto said directly into his mic on his shoulder. There was no response. “Okay, Captain, whatever. Just respond.
We need to pike out of here.” Still
nothing. He listened closely and heard
the mild hiss of a jammed channel. Otto
only hoped she recognized the problem and was sending help now. But he wasn’t counting on it. “Tenac, use your private line to Gizi. Tell her what’s passing.”
“Wilco,” Sergeant Tenac said. He and his girlfriend, the communications
officer, had inserted cybernetic communication implants in their minds for a
Valentine’s present. They had done it as
a romantic gesture, and it had more than once been useful in a jam, but never
for anything this serious. Much to his
relief, she responded, and even more to his relief, the ship had not been
attacked. She was safe. Now they needed to be as well. “Let’s jonder,” he said.
Without orders, Dr. Brody rushed for the
old professor and asked him if he could walk.
“I’m a slothist bugger, but I can move.”
“I’ll help,” Dr. Brody said.
“I’ve got him,” Otto said.
But Dr. Brody interrupted him. “You’ve got the best weapon and you need to mag
us out of here.”
“Wilco,” Otto said, turning toward his
overwhelming responsibility.
“Don’t get us rubbed,” Brody insisted; a
completely unnecessary gesture.
Otto nodded and sucked in his desire to
respond “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
They hurried to the front door, the two
raiders checking the corners each time they entered a room. They were grateful to learn that the “Dark
Ones” had not gotten inside yet, and with any luck, their trap had gotten old
and they had left.
One look outside revealed that they
hadn’t. A little under a dozen thruster
trails dangled below black suited soldiers with darkened visors and small rapid
shot rifles trained on the door. One or
two saw them approach and a flurry of shots riddled the entry. The raiders jumped back, but they knew that
when everyone opened fire, there would be no chance for them to escape,
especially since another dozen were flying up into position, and about twenty
or thirty more were approaching the entry on snowmobiles. The shuttle was a discouragingly long way
from them, and their enemy was blocking the path already.
But then came the artillery; blasts from
the Black Lotus crashing down in front of the entryway. The snowmobiles were shattered into
smithereens. The shockwaves blew back
those in the jetpacks, and the resulting smoke filled the air, mixed with white
puffs of dissolved snow.
Otto recognized an opportunity when he saw
one, and he ordered everyone to run. The
raiders and their sergeant went first, their rifles covering their faces as
they fired at any living thing they detected, whether flying or driving. The doctor and his patient went next,
hobbling along as fast as they could while still trying to keep their
feet. Then Otto took up the rear,
wishing the doctor and the professor would pick up the pace a bit, crippled or
not. He also took the shots he could,
though he held his fire until he had clear ones to avoid giving away his
position.
They pushed forward blindly through the
swirling whiteness, avoiding the blue-green shots that rattled through. Tenac sent messages to Gizi telling her which
direction the majority of shots were coming from. A moment later, he knew she heard him because
the large blasts exploded in that direction, and the laser blasts became less
numerous.
At last he spotted the door to the shuttle
up ahead. He sprinted for it, and a
moment later regretted his decision. The
raider to his left, Clara, went down. He
heard her scream in pain, then gasp through a sob for a moment. By the time he looked over at her, the pained
expression on her face and her still form, arched backward, told him that she
was gone. He fired several covering
shots in the direction from which the blasts had come, and when he saw more
fire from the same direction, he was able to take down one of the flyers.
The doctor and the professor rushed passed
him, opened the door to the shuttle, and went inside. Otto helped to cover, and told the second
raider to get inside next. Then he and
the sergeant argued over who would cover and who would go inside, both
insisting the other move first, until at last they hurried in together, almost
crushing one another at the door.
A few shots fired after the shuttle as it
took off, trying to get that lucky shot that would knock it out of the sky, but
they found no such mark, and the shuttle made it away.
* * *
Shasa’s eyes fixed rigidly on Professor
Gustav, as he had introduced himself.
She glared at him as though he was to blame for the death of one of her
raiders, and the injury of a second.
They were light years away from his planet now, and it was time for him
to talk. She expected answers from the
professor, and they needed to include a tidy profit to make this whole venture
worthwhile. Sergeant Tenac, Ansil Marin,
the communications officer, and two raiders, both friends of their gunned down
comrade, also shared the room. Every one
of them was expecting the same answers from the man they had rescued.
Shasa had set this meeting in the mess
hall where they could sit at a table on which she could place the rod. The interrogation room seemed overly harsh
for someone who was ostensibly an ally, but she was in too foul a mood to be
inclined to provide the luxury of the lounge.
Besides, the professor was hungry, and Shasa determined that he’d
provide more thorough answers on a full stomach.
The professor was digging through a meal
they had provided. It was the first
ration of off-world food, including fresh vegetables, that he had had in a long
time. Oblivious to their stares, he
satisfied his hunger first before looking up to give them any answers. At last he spoke. “They call themselves the Dark Agents. So named for their ultimate design to veil
all knowledge of previous alien intelligence behind a dark wall of secrecy. They are the scourge of xeno-studies; opposed
to all knowledge and education on the subject.
They hunt down and destroy alien artifacts, murdering those who have
seen them, and covering their tracks behind them.” He said the last sentence as a closing
thought while he leaned down to take in more food.
“Why would anyone do that?” Shasa
asked. “What do they even gain?”
“They are cultists,” Professor Gustav
explained. “Their goal is to shroud
humanity in ignorance.”
“Where’s the profit in that?” Shasa
pursued.
Professor Gustav looked Shasa in the eye
the way he would a childish pupil in one of his classes. “My dear girl. Not everyone is obsessed with the pursuit of
currency. Consider my daughter, for
instance. She has dedicated her life to
the very opposite of the Dark Agents.
She jonders from planet to planet seeking out clues to new life and
civilizations. When she finds artifacts,
she sends them to museums and universities for study, rather than destroying
them like the barbarians you just encountered, or selling them to corporations
that will only use them for their own self-interests.”
Shasa half rolled her eyes. One of the benefits of being captain was
supposed to be that she was beyond such chastisement. But this artifact, while not so much valuable
in itself, was supposed to lead to something that could be worth millions of
electros. Perhaps this man’s daughter
was the key. “Where is your daughter?”
“She is the reason I told your officer that
I could answer your questions. She and
her team of archaeologists are researching the ruins of a Raginor settlement on
Beta Andreas. They believe they have
discovered the legendary Gate of Eternity.
The rod you are carrying is the key to this powerful portal,” he
concluded as he nodded to the rod resting between them, its mouth opened wide
toward the professor.
The officer that the professor referred
to, Otto, was at the present time commanding on the bridge keeping the ship in
a holding pattern until they figured out where they were going. Shasa was glad he was at the moment, as she
knew he would come up with a snarky remark to this insane concept. And Shasa suspected it would only get
stranger.
Presently, she was proven correct. Shasa suddenly noticed also that other
utensils on the table were pointed toward the rod. It was possible this was a coincidence as
they could have been placed that way originally. But it wouldn’t have made a lot of sense to
have laid them out crooked like that, and on opposite sides of the table. She looked up to see some of the fruits which
they hung on the ceiling were also leaning unnaturally toward the rod, as
though they were in some way reaching for it.
The professor noticed her perplexity and
said, “There is a slight gravitational pull inside it which fluctuates. Sometimes there is no sign of it at all. Other times, like this, it becomes
stronger. It’s supposed to be at its
strongest when the Gate of Eternity is near.”
“What’s the Gate of Eternity?” Shasa asked,
not certain she wanted to hear the answer.
“Nobody knows for certain,” the professor
answered. “It’s only written about in
the Raginor’s most sacred texts, and even there, it’s only rumor. It is said to be a passage to nirvana… The
path to Heaven.”
Shasa felt like rolling her eyes
again. She was more thankful than ever
that her brother was not present.
“Even the Sigueran, a race bent on the
destruction of the Raginors, wrote of this Gateway. They were trying to find it, and the rod
which controlled it. The Raginors hid
their secrets well before they were destroyed.
The Siguernas thought they had discovered it…” The professor smiled
slightly, running his finger across the mouth at the end of the rod, “…but it
disappeared from their grasp somehow.
And now you control it.”
Shasa yanked the rod away from him. She would be damned if he’d use some sleight
of hand to take this treasure away from her.
“So if we take it to your daughter, she’ll pay us well for it?”
The professor again looked disappointed in
Shasa, as though she was an underachieving student. “You will be properly compensated for your
efforts, captain. I have no doubt.”
* * *
Any planet with the designation Alpha,
Beta, or any other Greek sign, is one that has not yet been charted, let alone
settled by humans. It means the planet
is on the fringe, far away from the interest of corporations and even
explorers. And far away from any help
should one require it.
Captain Shasa Kerikova was very aware of
this fact as the Black Lotus appeared out of the colorful flash of spectrum
drive in the silent, empty Andreas system.
If Professor Gustav was correct, this system once thrived with ships
flying to and from the second planet until some other race came alone and destroyed
them. Since that time there had been
nothing for millions of years, save for a handful of archaeologists led by
Gustav’s daughter Shayda.
Communications Officer Ansil Marin was now
trying to hail Shayda and her crew on the planet’s surface. He first tried a general signal, then
narrowed it down to a frequency provided to him by the professor. There was no response. They placed the ship into orbit and tried
again, still nothing. Gustav worried
while Shasa recognized the inevitable conclusion to what had happened. The Dark Agents were more than a step ahead
of everyone. They knew about this
outpost and had already sent a team to capture the location of the gate. They were merely waiting for their other team
to arrive with the rod that Shasa now held in her hand. She never trusted anyone else with anything
of value. Her crew was held together by her
denial of their individual capacities to get wealthy off their discoveries.
What was a little disconcerting was the
lack of a Dark Agent ship in orbit. There
could be a smaller one on the planet, but if they had come in force, as Shasa
had assumed, they would need something large enough to be detected. She had Gizi Sioban, the sensors commander,
run a second, then a third scan to be certain.
She moved on to scanning the planet’s surface, coordinating her two
sensors operators to cover as much ground as possible as efficiently as they
could.
Shasa then wondered if that was the point;
to lure them in the way they had been baited onto the professor’s moon where
the Dark Agents could spring a trap. She
wanted to ask Gustav what he thought, but the man was beside himself with
worry. He scurried along the dividing
wall on the bridge where the sensors operators did their work, trying to spot
any sign of his daughter or her crew.
They were running across the most likely spots where life may be,
whether friend or foe.
Shasa was already organizing a landing
crew. She would go with them this time,
taking the rod with her. She alone would
arrange the sale once they located the archaeologists. Shasa was not so naïve to believe they would
have enough to pay on the spot, especially after being captured by cultist
weirdos. But she would need the proof
that she had it, and she didn’t trust anyone else with the responsibility. Otto would come with her; she wanted his
muscle and his weapon. Mostly his
weapon. With that in mind, she would
also bring Sergeant Tenac and a raider for more support. She wanted to bring more firepower, but she
knew she’d need Professor Gustav with them to help search, and Dr. Erida in
case he was needed for the archaeologists.
There was no official chain of command after Shasa and her brother, so
she appointed Gizi Sioban to take command in her absence since sensors would be
so important in this instance, and she had direct communication to her
boyfriend Sergeant Tenac.
Gustav made an exclamation of
recognition. “You found something,”
Shasa said, approaching him.
“Yes.
Go back a half tick. There.” The screen revealed a misty jungle. It looked no different than most of the rest
of this planet, which was overgrown with greenery, mountains, and oceans. This was in a valley near a thin river that
cut through as though weaving drunkenly toward its destination. Just to the southwest of one point in this
river, an elongated, misshapen tree seemed to branch out in a triangular
fashion. Upon closer examination, one
could see that this was no tree, but a thin tower. It was easy to miss, especially with moss and
other greenery pressing through its cracks.
But it was unmistakably a constructed tower. Having now spotted that, another sensors
operator found a second tower nearby, then Gizi found a third. “That will be the Raginor settlement,” the
professor said. “They were a race of
climbers and almost always had towers somewhere in their cities. The rest is probably beneath the canopy.”
His last word was the very problem with
landing right next to the towers. There
was a veil of green leaves that blocked their view of the ground. Navigating the shuttle past them would be
difficult enough, but if anything was waiting for them down there, it was
certain death. Shasa ordered them to
find a nearby clearing that wasn’t the river.
One was located two kilometers to the
northeast. It was large enough for the
shuttle, and then some. In fact, this
was confirmed to be where the archaeologists had been when Gizi noticed several
crates nestled at the edge of the clearing, just under the edge of the jungle’s
canopy. An occasional breeze pulled back
the leaves far enough to reveal the supplies for just a few moments before they
were replaced. This was clearly where
they had embarked from, but where their own shuttle could be was now the
mystery. And if the Dark Agents had
landed, where was their ship? This was
the most logical location for anyone to land, but nothing was visible.
The six of them would just have to land
and find out. Simeon Tabor, the
navigator, put the Black Lotus into low orbit, close enough for support and a
quick escape just over the clearing. The
starship was just getting into position when Shasa and the others got to the
shuttle. She called up to the bridge
crew, confirming everyone there was ready, and they were.
She looked at the five others in their
seats, all strapping in and preparing for departure. “Everyone ready?”
“Yes, ma’am,” they responded; all except
Otto, sitting next to her. His silence
garnered her attention, and he looked at her confidently in the eyes and
winked. She sighed, and told him to take
them down. The front jaw of the ship
slowly dropped open, and they slid out.
To be continued...
